Straggler ? 2015

Time? By definition, is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole. Time? A point as measured in hours and minutes past, midnight or noon. Time? As allotted, available, or used.

Thus the traveler has learned, or will soon learn, that time was meant to go forward and not back. Not going back on decisions, on lessons learned, on weaknesses now built into strengths. But for their whole life, as it was, the traveler kept their strengths behind a bulwark of regrets and not doing. The enemies amassed the gates, and behind those feeble doors, the armies that were meant to charge forth without fear or diversion, lingered under storm clouds shaking and terrified, frozen under the cold rain pouring their backs.

Frozen to what was out there, petrified into self-doubt and submission, ready to lay down all arms and surrender. Where is the king, where is the queen? There is none, for the castle is lost, to become empty ruins, decay to the hands of time.

The traveler...was not always a traveler, but once was just an ordinary human, rendered to birth and existence, the varied road between start to finish, a long road that begins with the first breath, thus eventually ends with the final gasp of death. Forecast cannot predict when it comes, and the tiny shrill of fate's warning, is hard to hear under all the hustle and bustle of traffic, machines, the noises on the outside as well as all those thoughts and decisions within. Balance? Well, just keep it together, but scales tip and we can only keep so much around us to even life out.

Time was never on the traveler's side, nor anyone's side for that matter. There is no jersey or special interest group for an indefinite, incorporeal ideal. Time is its own governing body and it makes its own rules and jurisdictions, which are: None. There is no rhyme or reason for what time does, only the reasons we give. Time keeps moving forward, and we move with it. The only job the traveler had and will have is to fill in the empty paragraphs, where time has not the creative tact to impose, nor does it decide what the days and nights hold. That is the traveler's job.

Some look ahead and live life to the fullest with the time given to them, some are unhappy with their time, and their life ends short. That is not time's problem; it keeps moving on with or without us, we're just along for the ride. Until the traveler came along, and wanted to go back, go back to fix those mistakes of theirs, to not be conquered so easily, to build a lasting empire and not let the gates and walls crash down around them. Keep a roof over their head to keep out the rain, until the storms pass and the sun shines through. Go back and relive the brighter moments and take in the sunshine missed.

The traveler approached time, they followed its trail across the world, across the universe, following its trail of ancient days left, and pristine wonders that arise ahead. The traveler ran and ran for miles and miles onward, until they became neck-n-neck with the perpetual enigma, and time looks over, and sees, an old and withered being, who wasted their strength on trying to catch up with time, and not focus on living.

And now, so close to the end, this old and withered traveler, their moment has come, they ask the question, the question they always needed to ask, what they spent so much time and energy pondering, wondering, walking and running, trying to find the answer they sought for so long "What if I could go back...and do it all over again?", and to the end of their time, they come, before their life and time parts ways, they cry aloud:

"I want to go back! I want to start over again! I want to see the faces and the places you passed by, left in ruin! My childhood, my adulthood...my life! I want to go back and see it all, experience it all again, find were things went wrong, make the changes and do things right! I swear, I won't waste you time, I won't waste existence and precious moments...I just want the chance to live again, please, you're almost gone...and there is so much I never did!"

The traveler falls to their knees and cries, weeping as time keeps passing them by, moving on and on. Then, for a brief moment...time stops. The traveler looks up and faces the empty face of the clock, the lifeless void of minutes and hours, days and years. The hands keep ticking by, the days grow darker and the night drags on longer. The traveler tries to move, but movement becomes harder, sight becomes dim, and breathing shorter. The traveler reaches the pinnacle, the last mile of horizon line, where there is no dawn, there is no more sun, while the perennial vagabond's quest shall continue on.

And time stares down, into the final moments the traveler hangs onto, reaching, pleading, for the final words, but they can speak no more. There is no more sight or smell, no taste or touch, the traveler can no longer feel. The traveler lays his head down to rest, to be at peace, and in those final moments, time speaks:

"This is where I leave you traveler, in this, your final hour. For I, Time, I keep moving forward, never back. If you spent less of what I gave you worrying about your past and present, you could have spent more moments seeing what light there is, even during darker days. Then maybe, life would have been a little brighter. For now you know, as very few do...enjoy the sun while you can...because in death, it's the darkness that consumes..."

And time leaves the traveler; taking life with it, leaving the traveler to sleep forever, for now the traveler will not worry about existence. As time moves onward, as people move forward, the traveler...has become a straggler.

Time keeps moving forward.