Broken Times

The girl with the broken time looked over the grassy field from where she relaxed on one of the many enormous branches of the World Tree. It was a green, lush world with lots of grass and other foliage. That was it, though, just foliage.There were no people who were there in the vast plain, only Yggdrasil to keep her company with a few pulses every now and then to remind her it was a living thing still. She kept looking on, through the grass, through the clouds, through time itself even to another dimension.

Another dimension.

Besides the plain of emptiness that the broken timed girl resided at, there were other dimensions in the same place, only working under a different time pattern than hers. She could see any which one she wanted out of the thousands of possibilities; she liked the one with the song boy. He had a beautiful voice that she would often listen to before taking a noon nap with Yggdrasil. Sometimes even she would sit at the bottom of the tree right next to where the boy was sitting, listening to him sit there and sing. She wasn’t sure why he would always come at the same time and same place all the time, but he would come nonetheless. He would sit down, sometimes with a lunch, other times just to sing for a couple minutes or hours before heading back to his home.Those times after he had left, she would stay there and think about the songs he had sung. It was a way to pass time: to find out the meaning behind the song that he would sing that day. It was apparent, however, that their times were different. A day in his time was about three years in hers. Still, with the relished memory of the boy, she would sit and wait with Yggdrasil until his next return. But even he would someday die too.

Occasional visitors.

It helped to sooth her soul to know that there were other people out there like her whose time was broken, even if it was momentarily. To them it might be days, months, or possibly a couple years—it would never last any more than that—but to the girl it was only like a blink of an eye. A thousand memories crammed into one small second of her “time.” They were kind people, though their only downfall was that they were lost souls seeking heaven. They had gotten lost, strayed off the path somehow and ended up in the limbo, lifeless place she was stuck at. Kind as they were and as fun as it was to be together, they always wanted to go all the way. Not one of them stayed till the end; they always managed to find their way back, perhaps because it was where they belonged. So, she sat there, thinking of the times she had spend with those outsiders, as she liked to call them, calmed and relaxed by the music of the boy.

Yggdrasil.

The first and only thing she found a friend and companion in was Yggdrasil. At first glance, it was tree like any other, the only difference in being that it was the tallest thing by miles in the place. The branches were huge and the trunk seemed to go on forever. The bark was so large that it made climbing up the tree a cinch. It wasn’t until the girl got all the way up and snuggled into one of the many branches that she could feel the pulse for the first time. It was like it responded to her sometimes, when she would say things or do things an extra pulse or two would flash through the tree. She always wondered what was behind that tree. But when she found the different dimensions, she knew that it was because of the power of the Yggdrasil. It was a tree that could cross the spans of time, or more like the dimensions themselves were all connected somehow the the World Tree, each dimension having its own version of what it looked like. Though, the real version wasn’t so bad. It had a wonderful shade to it, and catch the right spot and it has just enough sun to keep you warm yet pleasantly cool.

Thoughts.

Perhaps it was the time in between being awake and sleeping that she was truly able the think about the reason she was there. It was so long ago that she hardly remembered how she ended up there with the World Tree and the boy. She knew she was a wandering spirit like the rest of those people, her time in the world of life was ended eons ago, but neither could she step forward to the glowing light city. What was it that was holding her back? Or did she truly belong here, something like a guardian of time? Either way, it was obvious she was trapped and didn’t know the way out like so many others who found what they lost.

The Encounter.

She always believed there was an end to something. Along time ago she also believed that nothing happened without a purpose. She wasn’t sure why she was stuck or why her time was broken, but she could feel a deep connection with the boy; she knew she met him for a reason, a good reason. The first time he came to the tree was when he was just a little boy, no more than four years old, and now if you looked at him you could hardly tell that he was the same little boy who first came here; he’d turned into a fine young man. A smile would come to her face as she watched him grow up. It was kind of like she was his mother, but she knew a secret side to him that no one else knew. She was much closer to him than his mother. They had an invisible connection each could feel without knowing exactly what it was. It stayed liked that for a very long time.

It was in the middle of a nap she was taking at the trunk of the World Tree. She had dozed off waiting for the boy to come back and sing his song. His feet crunched against the flowing grass. They were like floating strands of the finest, silkiest hair floating in the mid-afternoon air. The air so pure it was like new life was beating into you with every breath. It was beautiful—nature at it’s finest. It was a solitude of enchantment built for being alone to let the observers observe and the thinkers think. It had a calming sense to it, letting your body and mind relax, putting all the things you don’t need to think about somewhere far away.

Calming.

Tranquility.

Solitude.

But in that lonely world there was one other person there: the girl with the broken time. She slept silently at the base of a large, large tree. There was even a glow from the tree, like a beacon to guide the lost, that drew him to it. He sat next to the girl and leaned his head back to rest his head on Yggdrasil. His breathing slowed and soon began to lull him to sleep; a deep, somber, light sleep.

She awoke with a start, a slight shake, a small jitter. To her left was the boy, fast asleep in a dreamworld, half on her shoulder, half on Yggdrasil. Her eyes grew wide but she dared not move in fear of waking the boy. He opened one eye and shook his head like the way a dog would if it was wet. He yawned and stretched his hands up in the air. Then he smiled at her, a gentle and warm thing. Standing up, he extended out his hand to her.

“Is that what you were waiting for?”

He pointed to a large, shining light that filled the sky just at the top of a nearby hill. Could he have been what she had lost, what she was waiting for? If he could lead her out to where she had always wanted to go like this with only his hand holding onto hers, then yes, he was what she needed all this time. It was the boy and his sweet melody.