She sat on the beach, gazing at the early stars. The stars that show up ahead of schedule, anxious to get their shift started. When the sun is still setting, they’ve already clocked in and begun shining in the sky. This was her moment–her time. It wasn’t quite dusk, wasn’t quite twilight, but it was quite energizing to her. This was her favorite time. Once, a long while ago, she had told someone this was her favorite part of the day. A secret shared.
Now, as an old woman, she sat with the cool water lapping at her ankles thinking of those ancient moments. What was once so fresh then seemed but hazy memory–had it even happened? Was it just the lingering ache of a recurring dream? She shook her head softly to clear the cobwebs; to affirm her stance: her memories were real. The friends she made, the love she lost. As she now sat at the precipice of the end, she must be certain that her life had really even ever occurred. When did her story really begin? With the kidnapping of the monarch’s only son? At the Calamity of Jirimuhn? No it had, of course, started so much longer before that. It started when a foreign boy washed up upon these very shores. When she had come to the beach to fetch shells and, instead, she found him.
To look back at your own memories was to gaze through far away times, but as she sat there this evening she needed to relive them all once more.