Sands of time - Sables du temps

It felt like a melodramatic scene from one of those classical 1940’s black and white movies, except it was in full technicolour. The man was wearing a brown suit with a fedora style hat; the colour of which was also brown and matched his suit. A completely inappropriate attire and oddly mismatching the surroundings of the crashing surf line of the seashore. He was holding both hands of his beloved, and from a profile view the holding of both hands seemed to symbolize an important proclamation. He was imploring her. The outstretched hands emphasized and underlined the importance of his speech to her. It was a proclamation; a declaration of love to his dearest. She was dressed more casually in the scene, just a simple plain dress of the period, probably 1940’s, as she looked with utter seriousness into the man’s face, listening with intent to his every word. She was tense, and from the profile view one gained the impression she was worried and concerned about the man’s declaration. His words; every sentence were creating more tension in her demaeanour. Importantly, the manner in which the man clasped both the women’s hands, had made her a captive to listen to his every word, every nouse, every meaning of what he was proclaiming. His hands clasped over her wrists were not only demanding her complete attention, but they were also asking, no pleading for the acceptance of his words.

There was an impression of innocence conveyed by the beautiful young-looking couple, a vision to store in the mind’s eye for eternity. Although the mind over endless time might play tricks with the background, perhaps conjure a sea view or a view on top of high mountains with wispy white clouds, the surroundings only matched the tension of the young couple in the middle of a dramatic moment in both their lives.

The old man was looking at the cinematic scene contained in the glass orb held firmly in his hand. Was it a faraway memory in time. A memory that became more vivid with the passing of time, an important moment in his time, a time of reckoning. One could imagine the glass orb resembling one of those ornaments, when shaken, where it creates a magical silvery snowy scene. Except he held the glass orb with the vision firmly in his grasp, no magical snow appeared in the lucid scene, only the sound of silence. Muted for eternity with the emptiness of words without understanding, where only a visual presence remained. A scene where communication fails; impervious to the woman’s closed and stubborn consciousness.

Unlike an hourglass, the sands of time were trapped in the orb forever. Forever to haunt his hopes and dreams. The orb showed he was still standing and clasping her hands, pleading with her to change her mind.

“I don’t want the baby.” She said under her breath, in a fiercely determined whisper. Her eyes were clouded with tears of emotion, but those eyes were full of horror, and showed the fearful dread, and undeniable conflict that was taking place in her head, her heart and her soul.

“It’s a judgement on what we did! If my father finds out, you are dead.” Said the 16-year-old girl, her young face without a trace of lines or make-up trying to control her emotions, trying to keep sane and determined, and stick with her plans.

“I am dead!” She started to sob.

Then she straightened and disentangled her hands from his grasp. They limply dropped by her side, and at the same time she dropped her head from his imploring gaze. She felt unimaginably alone, she felt disgraced and unclean in the face of thousands of imaginary objecting and accusing faces. She was unable to look up, not even to a person only inches away, completely absorbed in her pain, her humiliation, ashamed to be alive. “I have already organized for a doctor.” She was unable to say the one word burning in her head. She imagined that saying the word would damn her on the spot. She had to kill the growing organism inside and purge herself of her overwhelming shame. She berated herself with religious fervor, as she now regretted her unbridled passions The rage of her internal scream rang out clear in her head “God had judged her deed with this stranger.”

Her unconscious feelings may have been caused by her inexperience and age. Suddenly, real life had appeared at her door and violently shook her from her dreams of love and romance, and irresponsibility. The sudden appearance of regret, and feeling under the spotlight of a hidden God, an unforgiven deity. Her God was longer bringing her pleasure, and had stopped presenting her with romantic gifts, instead her God had brought her an unwelcome gift of embryonic responsibility, taking away her childhood and freedom and replacing it with adulthood and an unselfish duty to another.

The vision from the orb he held in his hand showed the girl of his dreams, the once in a century plant had bloomed, and he had bathed in the pure waters of her radiance. He had breathed in the profound pleasure of her fragrance, writhing and twisting in her sweet-smelling embrace. Now he felt the robber of her once in a lifetime efflorescence. Suddenly, she had withered and perished from the heavy burden of reality, the consequence of their love making. His words, his demonstration of love and commitment had fallen far from her closed ears, as she remained imprisoned by her shame and humiliation.

He had wrestled with her hands, pleaded with her common sense, but the feelings of panic, the physical knowledge that something alien was growing inside her. A growth and the result of their pleasurable love making and passion now revolted her and prevented any words of reassurance from him to sooth away those waves of panic. She dismissed any idea of sharing with someone else those feelings of hopelessness, of feeling alone. Certainly, not her lover as he was the cause of her predicament. The horror of her circumstances was tantamount, and she remained cold, selfish and uncaring in the face of his pleading. She had decided selfishly for both of them, by herself. It was her temple, her body. She had concluded alone and severed the relationship; no matter how much pleading. Suddenly a deep chasm had appeared in their relationship and removed all mutual understanding. It fractured and divided their worlds.

The scene in the luminous glass orb he held in his hand changed, and there now was a vision of her fully eight months pregnant, smiling and happy. Standing alone, upright, proud, her eyes bright and full of hope. He had finally convinced her, and the radiance found in the scene was originating from within her, as well as radiating light from behind her full and capacious body. Imagine the colours used by a painter to create a semblance of light, one associated with a classical mythical painting.

The scene changed again, and the brown suited young man, his arm around the girl with the simple dress, and in the centre of the picture is a baby in the protective arms of his mother, the picture shows the proud smiling parents of a new borne child. The aurora around the couple and the baby speaks loudly towards a new beginning, a show of positivity, confidence and togetherness of a new fresh family.

The old man awoke from his dream, he felt pain of old age creaking through his body, his mind was conscious, now alert, but his old bones needed time to adjust to movement again. Slowly he gained momentum to move to the toilet, as his full bladder complained to his prostate gland to commence another day of his long life. The waking process of old age, where parts of his body no longer worked in unison, but instead complained in isolation and conflict.

He remembered the dream of the glass orb, the visions. His unwashed face littered with the salt and pepper of unwanted straggly hair, enhanced the etched lines, the cracks and creases on his aged face. He spoke to himself, as he knew he was the only to listen to himself. No one else would listen to his utterances, words from a wandering mind. Nowadays, his life was living alone, surrounded by so many memories of his life, the what if dreams, the many different roads he traveled; some real, some make believe, but all versions of his hopes and dreams.  

“Nothing lasts forever!” He sighed heavily.

His eyes watered, peering into the distance, completely unfocused on the new day, but only focused on his thoughts. A tear welled in his sunken eye socket hollow and slowly ran along the deep lines of his cheek, a golden tear full of hope, physical evidence of his dreams. Capture that teardrop which looks like a drop of gold, to be treasured like the tears of an extinct creature, and the riches of living will be bestowed upon you.

“Redemption - hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. Someone had once said, a better person than I. So, it must be true." He sighed again.

Still remembering his personal scenes, the visions from the glass orb.