One day a boy was born and his dad brought him home promising him never to disavow.
Every living thing within miles had come to see him. He was so adored and so renown.
On his first birthday, his Father brought him upon a mirror and explained that in him lies the light of perfection.
He explained that any question that could be imagined could too be solved, if he looked no further than his own reflection.
And on his second birthday his Father brought him outside and pointed to the Heavens above.
He told his young son that what goes up must come down, thus Heaven must be what he is made of.
On his third birthday his Father showed him this earth—the land and the fruit in the trees.
He advised his baby boy to fill his soul before his mind when it came time to choose what he would eat.
On his fourth birthday his Father brought him to a window at a time when the sun and moon would eclipse.
And the boy felt so loved and so safe in his father’s arms that he could practically kip.
On his fifth birthday his Father took him to the skies and the depths in the bottom of the sea.
He showed him the harmonics and how creatures use water to travel across many frequencies.
On the boy’s sixth birthday his Father took him to his window and showed his son the animals roaming the land.
And he told his young son that he was so very loved that even the largest beast would bow before his hand.
And on his seventh birthday his Father did rest.
And the boy, feeling grown, put his knowledge to the test.
He left the safety of his Father’s world in one swift eruption.
Without thinking through all of the vast repercussions.
When his Father found out his baby boy had been stolen.
He took the skies and sent him an omen.
Now the Father waits patiently for his son’s safe return.
Knowing the lessons, he has taught him will unveil what he’s learned.
And although it has been years now, he knows his boy isn’t disheartened.
Lessor boys let the pains and the ails make them hardened.
“But love floats and sin sinks. Hate has always been heavy.
That is the key to which you seek, I am here when you’re ready.
For as long as all that is good continues to rise.
You can trust in my word that I am not far behind.
So fill your heart with my love and you will find yourself untethered.
Come home my dear child, my love, my treasure.”
When Lincoln Garvey was a boy he was told how his life would go. Which ones he should invest his money in. What ones warranted more labor and effort, and the some ones who would be worth waiting for. It always struck him sideways that people would choose not to travel through life in this manner. That they would want to be surprised by the events that eventually upend them. That they would rather not know, the precise moment when things would all work out.
He was taught that the universe was the ultimate mother. To exist with her is to love her without any waiver or falter. Even when she is harsh and she will be cruel. She can be unforgiving, but it’s only because she sees more than you. She is needed more than you. She works harder than you yet she is paid less. She is unappreciated. She is taken advantage of. She isn’t trusted therefore she is blamed. Still, she tries only to give you what is required. Hoping to teach you it is up to you to find desire within those requirements. But she also knows that with a little incessant pleading on your part and some time on hers, she will find a way to give you what you want.
Lincoln Garvey was taught that the universe is a good woman. That she doesn’t like to be rushed. She doesn’t like to be told what to do. She doesn’t like it when you tell her she is wrong because she is never wrong! You just can’t see all of the things that she can yet. So you must trust her. You must honor her. You must never be afraid to lead but you must also understand that you are following in her flow. You must never set your sights on a new course of action without her consent. You must never push against her will. Let her guide you because she will never steer you wrong.
It is these thoughts that Lincoln Garvey has carried with him on this first day of November. His grandfather, a man who could glimpse the future, taught him many things, told him many things about the times to come. Never mind all of which were true. After Lincoln's first heartbreak at age 14, Lincoln’s grandfather, with complete trepidation, told young Lincoln his first premonition. November 1, 2111 would be the date when he would meet his one. He could see the terror in his grandfather’s eyes as he told him, as if he had known for certain, saw it in the stars himself, that this moment would be the demise of their familial tie. As he had lost so many he had loved in that way before.
But it had a different effect on young Lincoln, one that his grandfather, the time-traveler, did doubt would occur. It eased a little of the anxiety in Lincoln. He felt much more powerful after that. Patience and peace were no longer enemies, ever since patience found its ally in faith. Living with trust feels very different than living with truth. For Lincoln, knowing how something will turn out, pacified his need to have it turn out that instant. And unlike the many that came before him, didn’t hold the messenger responsible for the message.
Landon Garvey taught his grandson many things he wasn’t able to teach his own son. It is funny how the ones that come from us can be so unlike us. As below, so above. But that with time, a single generation, the universe will still find a way to give us what we want. For three years after that, Landon Garvey unburdened himself to Lincoln. Taught him everything he learned about the ways of this world. How to read the signs and the stars. And on the day he died, the ones that shall be loved, saved and other things about this world. All of the things one could only share with the mate to his soul. He had waited a long time to find pure love like this.
Lincoln never figured it would matter who would be his one. His grandfather had told him that he had wanted to gift Lincoln one last element of surprise. But he knew he could get her name if he had wanted. The way the premonition went, suggested to Lincoln that she would be someone he had never met. And since he had technically met Leona McKnight once as a young child, even Lincoln thought nothing more about walking into East Elementary towards the last door on his right.
Lincoln Garvey didn’t like Leona as a child. She was wild, untamed and free and she never seemed interested to hear any of his predictions or sit through any of his lectures about how she should be. He was a know-it-all back then, at that specific age when knowing things felt important. So it felt even more important to him because the things he repeated were true. So, she must listen! And the fact that she didn’t only seemed to grate him even more.
This experience and the subsequent loneliness that followed became a pattern within his life, much like the life of his grandfather’s as well. Knowing things doesn’t mean what you say will be loved. People only hear what they want anyway. But he was reminded by his grandfather during those times of sadness that some one does understand him. And, that after he was gone, there would be one yet still and no more.
Leona carried a smile a bit too out-of-context for the occasion. Like she had seen him several times over the years instead of just the once. Lincoln smelled her hair when she leaned in for a hug. He wanted to interrupt her chatting, exchange her pleasantries for her poem instead. The one he overheard her tell those children, currently exiting the classroom in a frenzied fashion, just a few minutes before; as he had wondered, quite disconcertingly, where she had ever heard such a rendition.
It sounded very different than the one his grandfather had shared. Lincoln rousing from the thought after realizing he may have missed his moment and refocused in on the current conversation so as not miss anything else. After some thought, he verbally accepted Leona’s proposal, promising to stave off all chivalry for the evening by letting Leona lead them on their date. No reaching for his wallet. No talks of simply leaving the tip. Today, he will be courted. The idea of their first date as one he did not plan personally sickened him. His only antiemetic in the probability there will not be a second.
“I don’t smoke.”
He had learned over the years it was rude to slight someone’s gift to you. Even if the slight was a simple correction to the idea in their mind of what they think you want. But it had practically tumbled out when she said their first stop was Roll One.
She chuckled a bit aloud. It made him uncomfortable. He resorted to the one thing he always did when he found himself in such a state. He made himself useful by doing something polite and asked her if it was okay if he still held the door for her. She smiled again a much softer expression. Gratitude. The scent of her hair refilling his nose as she brushed by. It didn’t take long for him to realize why she had laughed. Her coconut hair quickly replaced with the scent of food. He followed her to the table, his eyes filling with joy as he glanced at the plates along his way past. Eggrolls—sweet, savory, spicy, Asian, Latin, good old U-S-of-A. Lincoln was in Heaven.
“I love this place.” She said to him cheerily. “I hope you like our first stop.”
A young man brought a tray. Noah’s Ark he called it. Eggrolls of differing flavors, ethnicities and skins in pairs of two. The sampler containing six pairs, each set with an accompanying sauce. With his first eggroll rock bottom, he had relaxed into the conversation that had carried them across multiple subjects. Lincoln told Leona the story of how eggrolls came to be his favorite food. She was the same confident Leona with a little less fire than he had remembered. She had more of a slow burn now. But she listened to his stories and seemed genuinely interested in their plot points—a welcome change.
She asked him if this would tide him over for now or if he had wanted her to put a few in her purse for the road. It was the first real laugh she had gotten from him that night. He followed her lead after that without any recalculations or discomfort; throughout the carefully weaved webs woven just for him.
She had told him about how she used to follow his grandfather around. About how he always seemed lonely. That each time she would see him, she would beg him to tell her about her life.
“Did he?”
“Never. I always took his silence to mean it wasn’t very interesting.” She admitted.
He told her about growing up in Terrie Two. About his thrice-great-grandmother, Lakeisha Plume. Why he never came back to Eleven. Why he finally did now. The truth. And as time carried on for Lincoln, each event: the play, dinner, the hobby shoppe, dessert and eventually, under those fairy lights in the community garden, minutes became hours with her. Clouds became stars. A choice became a preference.
He could recognize their differences immediately. Things she said that he didn’t agree with. Living life freely instead of with purposed intent. Chemical reactions that under less of a honeymoon haze would cause explosions. She would drive him insane eventually and also, that insanity was simply a new lens with which to walk this world. Perhaps even a welcome change. He recognized immediately the alchemy of their chemistry creating unique blends. And he understood then, after billions of years, why the earth still followed the sun. Like it had known all along that of all the objects in the universe, there is my one. Like it had understood, if they were any closer, they would destroy each other. Yet, if they were any further apart, life could not exist.
She said things that challenged his convictions. Yet she did things that compelled him to her orbit. And as time went on, he felt grounded within her gravity. During dinner, he innocently told her about the woman seated behind him whose voice clawed on the chalkboard of his skin. When he returned from the restroom, Leona had switched chairs with him. At dessert, they had been talking about the astronomical clock in Prague and whether or not it was still standing. He had sneezed. She had paused. He had sneezed again. She remained paused. He sneezed again. She blessed him and then continued. He looked up from his plate to see her carrying on.
Over the course of the evening, it became apparent that this was not a typical date. Eggrolls were his favorite food. The play they saw, Faerytales, had been his favorite book as a child. The Astrotheology Shoppe, the dairy-free dessert, all uniquely he. There was always an open table available even with a line outside the door. A bill never came at the end of a meal. Like everything had already been taken care of. The gift from the Shoppe, the owner insisted he take without paying when he had focused his attention on an astrolabe and couldn’t look away. Things that all were realized just then.
Earlier in the evening, she had told him his Grandfather had illustrated a children’s book for her. She hadn’t liked it as a child, though she couldn’t recollect the reason, but couldn’t bear the thought of ever parting with such a gift. Under those fairy lights she asked him if he would be interested in seeing it. He said yes. His only intent to turn hours with her into days.
They found the book in an old box in her garage and read it together right there on the floor. Each page a snapshot of a woman’s life: A picture of a couple in a crowded theater watching some sort of event. She sitting across from an empty chair at a restaurant with a woman and air-bubble behind it. A visit to a shoppe, the man carrying a store bag. A moment eye-to-eye in a garden surrounded by lights. With teary eyes she asked him how she could've ever misremembered something so great.
A picture of a pair huddled over a book they read together in a dusty garage. An argument between the pair on the bed. Her waving from the driveway as he drove off. A date circled on the calendar while she prepared dinner for his return. Them coming out of a church, the man in a suit and the woman in white with people surrounding them in surprise. A kiss on the forehead of a woman who had just given birth. His hand on her back, a toddler between them as they gaze out of a window and watch a yellow school bus pick up one of their own.
“I can’t believe this. All this time.” She whispered to him overwhelmed.
“Time keeps the best secrets.” Lincoln says to his future wife, and my grandfather. He smiles to himself.
With the turn of a page she quickly remembered why she had hated this book. The woman in a hospital bed surrounded by two small children and her husband—tubes and machines every which way. The last page, those young children, eightish and tenish, visiting the gravestone on a sunny day.
“All I ever wanted was a fairytale.”
He picked her up off the floor and carried her to bed. He laid down with her in the dark. He held her hand until she snored, and when it was safe, drifted off to sleep too. Leona awoke to the sun and his eyes greeting her. Her hand still woven in his. She smiled at him despondently.
“Your grandfather was the saddest man I had ever met.” She began softly. “Everyone, every soul, worshiped him but I often found him alone sitting in that garden. I would sit with him sometimes. He would never talk, so I would listen to him breathe instead. And if I was lucky, listen to the interactions he would have with the people who passed us by. Sometimes, when the silence would overwhelm me, I would talk. Each conversation I tried he always obliged. He would find which truth you needed to hear and give it like a gift. I quickly learned how exhausting it must’ve been for him. To always feel like there was something you had everyone wanted.”
Lincoln began to well up with the memory of his grandfather as she continued. “I tried for years to get him to open up. I asked about all kinds of subjects. Of course, nothing worked. Then one day, because I was curious, I asked about you. We talked for hours that day and many more days like it. I believe, towards the end at least, he looked forward to it too. I learned, the more questions I asked about you, the more I learned about him. His secrets unraveling with your stories. I fell in love with you back then.”
“Yesterday was the best day of my life, Leona. You ground me to this Earth in ways that, honestly, go against everything I believe in.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I could lay with you forever. Watch you sleep forever. Raise our kids together.”
“And I am failing to see how that is bad.” She stiffened.
“If you could see the big picture, then you’d understand.” Lincoln straightened defensively.
“What I see is that I will be dead when our children are small.”
“None of this is real, Leona. You can't get so worked up over something that isn't real.”
“So, explain it to me then.”
“If we were meant to have this life forever, we wouldn’t die. We would raise our kids until we were a thousand years old. The very fact that we don’t suggests that everything you see is not real. We are just part of a story. Extras in a movie that must play itself out.”
“Then what’s the point?”
"To love while you're here and then go home."
"Here is my home. I want to stay here with you."
“I believe every action you have ever done across all of your lifetimes, all of your stories, must be repaid.”
“You sound like your grandfather.”
“A single negative thought, Leona, brings karma. One thought. Imagine what you have manifested, shit, all of us have manifested, for ourselves all this time. The fairytale is that you believe you deserve to stay here and be happy forever. That this world was created, the mountains formed, the seas parted just for you to be born and for you to be happy. That everyone you've ever met's sole purpose is to ensure you have what you want. That sounds mighty righteous.” Lincoln stated humbly.
“No. You are mighty righteous, Lincoln! I mean, what have you done? You don’t even know me. I volunteer. I teach for fuck’s sake. I do deserve this.”
“Do you see? If I challenge you, I am met with anger. So, then I ask you, what do you expect in return, praise? Love? Compassion?” Lincoln asked calmly.
“I am upset, Lincoln.”
“You are upset because you want more nouns? You keep forgetting what this world is really about. It has never been about holding on to people, visiting more places and acquiring more things.”
“Go on.”
“There is not one thing that you can identify that lives forever. Not one being that doesn't suffer. We all suffer. We all age. We all sicken. We all die. We create life and all it does is the same exact thing. So what does that tell you?"
"It tells me that you only live once so I must get what I want now!"
"Be serious."
"Lead me then. Won't you?"
"Okay. Okay. What is the goal of any game?"
"To beat it."
"Good. Now, what if I told you that in order to beat this game you must meet this man in the forest and accept this quest...be serious."
"I will humbly accept the quest, milord."
"And then what if I told you that in order to fulfill the stranger's quest you are going to need supplies--armor, weapons, gold."
"Then I would do what must be done."
"Now, what if I told you this was the part where you met another player in the game and he was handsome and charming and that he vowed to ensure you completed that quest because he loved you so."
"Then I would marry him and have his babies."
"Now you see how easy it is to fall into this life. You guys are taking quests, earning gold, he buys you the best armor. He ensures your steed is reliable. You make and raise babies You take on more and more quests. Side quests. So, now what is your goal?"
"I don't like you."
"Just say I am right. You can call me Mr. Right, you know?"
"I'll never." She says with a smile.
"What is the goal?"
"To beat the game."
"There is no happiness here. Remove that from your mind. The people you hurt in your last life will come from miles in this life just to ruin your day. To make you upset. So that you make someone else upset. Yet people expect Eden from this place. Blame God that he allows it to continue, like he can just flood this world each time one of us sins. At one point, 8-billion people’s karma existing. There are no fairytales here."
“So then what do I do?”
“From this hour, in this second, resolve to be happy when others are sad, compassionate when others are angry. Love them when others hate your very existence because of your skin, your hair, your clothes, your beauty.”
“Then I will be like a fool.” Leona stated matter-of-factly.
“Incorrect. Then you will be like a God.”
"Perfect.”
“Exactly. Perfect. You will be perfect. This story was meant to play itself out and yes there are nouns. We have moments. We have minutes. Bask in the blinks while they are here and before they are gone. There has never been growth in happiness. There are no revolutions in times of peace. It is only with test that we discover testament. Accept the challenge because at this point that is really all we know for sure. But if your goal is more nouns, be despicable, be evil. That is the how you will attain them. Hoard your gold, level up your skills. Take on more and more quests. If your goal is to beat the game, fear not what the game throws your way."
“I understand.”
“Then also understand that being better doesn’t obligate anyone else to be too. Those are lessons they must learn on their…”
“I said I understand, Lincoln.”
“We just had our first fight. How do you feel?”
“Compassionate that I wasn’t the one who won.”
“Don’t be funny.” He smiled. “You know there is a bright side to this as well.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“We whisper to the universe the things we would like from this world and she sighs because she is trying to give us the things we need. But every now and then, she will find a way to sneak us what it is we want.”
“Nouns?”
“It’s what makes all of this feel so real.”
“Have you always been like this?”
“I’ve been alone in my thoughts a long time, yes.”
“I see why your grandfather loved you so.”
“Why?” He asked brightly.
“Everyone came to him asking about this life. It must’ve seemed so insignificant a request. Their wants and needs. You must’ve been the only one who understood him. And I think, talking to him in the way that I did for all those years, helped me to understand you.”
“So, I didn’t scare you away then.”
“You only made me want to find you in my next life, which is apparently not that far off…” she sighed, “and spend it with you too.”
“You are so dramatic.” He returned with a chuckle. “Would you prefer I died first?”
“I would prefer you explain the real poem now. I know now that you trust me so won't you tell me?”
“I am not Landon Garvey. I don’t know which truths are gifts and which are burdens.”
“Am I your wife?”
“My one and only.”
“Then surely by now you've seen the signs that one has already become two.”
Lincoln gave Leona the poem. The real one taught to him by his grandfather decades before. In two days, he will depart with a wave and a promise to be back by dinner on the date he circles on her calendar. Two snapshots down. He will leave the little house on I-2 Langston Lane at twenty-two minutes after two. At the same time when the twins will conjoin in the sky. Just like that, an obsession with a number concluded. And that is why she is called good. It is after she concedes that she returns to your needs. And the signs and the stars follow suit.
One day a boy was born and his dad brought him home promising him never to disavow.
Every living thing within miles had come to see him. He was so adored and so renown.
On his fourth birthday his Father brought him to a window at a time when the sun and moon would eclipse.
And the boy felt so loved and so safe in his father’s arms that he could practically kip.
But the father awoke him with a fright and explained to him that he was never to fall asleep.
For in his dreams lives an evil man, that will take him away from he, his father, to keep.
“The bad man will torment you so.” His father said to him, “Each day of your life will grow tougher.”
“And the only way to ever make it back to me again is to suffer.”
The boy so terrified, asked by which creepy characteristic will he ever be able to spot him.
His father told him the man wouldn’t have gnarled nor sinister grin, that he would appear human and handsome.
His father explained that to steal the boy away he would disguise himself as good and gleam.
But quieted the boys cries and reassured him that the evil man could only appear to him in a dream.
And when the boy asked him what curses, which spells would, to him, the evil man say.
His father told him that it wouldn’t be how he would speak but what he would show him that would sway.
The father explained gravely that he would show the boy something so real, so powerful, he couldn’t help but betake
So the boy so scared of never feeling such love again, stayed wide awake.
On the boy’s sixth birthday his Father took him to his window and showed his son the animals roaming the land.
And he told his young son that he was so very loved that even the largest beast would bow before his hand.
And again the boy felt so loved and so safe in father’s house that he did not fear the worries that had once plagued him so deep.
And he neglected the warnings his father once gave and drifted right off to sleep.
While he was sleeping, the evil man came to him and offered him something he never once shared with another soul.
The evil man showed the boy magic and told him that he too can be in such control.
And boy was the boy swayed when he inquired as to how to achieve such a supernatural feat.
And the magic man told him his secret, “to be as his son is to be as himself—complete.”
When the boy woke from his nap he hid from his father. He washed his face, smoothing his skin of every crease.
But it did not hide what he did and his father, so angry, took away his peace.
He punished him and kicked him from their home, from all the love he had shown and told him he must find his own way.
The boy was so heartbroken as he didn’t understand what it had meant to stray.
The boy spent the next few years begging his father’s forgiveness.
And each time his attempts at reconciliation were banished with a quickness.
His father would tell him he would love him again if only he would behave a certain way.
So the boy changes his moods and his manners yet was still not accepted into his father’s good grace.
His father then told him he would love him again if only he would talk a certain way.
So the boy rearranged his syllables in pleasing order but still was not accepted into his father’s loving embrace.
The boy got older and turned into his own man.
He had long since stopped talking to his father trying to navigate this world as best he can.
And when he began to experience many of the pains that life, love and loss bring such delicate equation.
It was in those moments the boy contacted his father to get advice on such sorrowful occasions.
And each time, his father would remind him that this pain is there to harden.
That he must suffer through this life he chose but soon he will be pardoned.
When the boy grew old after having spent decades without love, he prepared himself for an early end.
But the old man who had laid down to die could manage to dream instead.
In his dream the magic man returned and asked him why he had taken so long to come back.
The old man told him that his father had warned him he was evil so he spent his entire life suffering in payback.
Then the magician told him something that disturbed the old man so much he was awakened on the spot.
The old man took off in the night and traveled hundreds of miles to return to the last place he was a tot.
He entered his old house and found his father sitting near the window they would look out of when he was a boy.
The old man asked his father why he had lied to him and how now he could remain so coy.
The old man angrily explained that it in fact it was the magician who was his parent.
That all of the things he had shown him—the stars in the sky, the beasts of the earth—only within the magic man had they been inherent.
The old man was really shouting now, and the father couldn’t help but glare at the boy now swallowed up by time.
And told him there was not one thing he has ever said that has ever turned out to be a lie.
“There does, in a dream, exist an evil man and he did show you something you believed to be true.”
Then the father smiled wide at that silly old man and finished, “so it’s not my fault you were duped.”
This work is created by, written by and belongs to Aecko and shared here for entertainment.