Write Me A River

In the future I sit on a hill. High above the soil, through the branches of the tallest trees, through the clouds and then higher still, I make my home. There is no sound on my hill, yet I don’t notice an absence of noise. My hill seems too far removed from the earth to be made of soil, yet soil is most definitely what I sit upon. I have never kept time here, but twilight’s soft glow comes often enough to allow me rest. I sometimes gaze at the stars; patiently waiting for one to have exploded in years past, so that I can witness its end. More often, though, I spend my time looking down. I look at the world below and watch my fellow man. Nothing they do makes me happy. From my hill I see fear. I called down to them once. “What have you to fear? You all will live, and you all will die.” They did not understand me, how could they? They have not lived on my hill. They did not understand me, yet they cursed me. “How could you say such things to US?” said they. “You do not know US,” they said, time and time again. And so I never called down to them again, but I watched, and I listened.

In the future I sit in a white house. I age faster than others of my kind because stress pulls at the very fabric of my being. I have to be calm always, and think with a clear mind. The harder I tell myself to search for this calmness, this well of tranquility, the more my stress tears me apart. I can tell that I will be dead soon. But all things end. To have lived at all may have been a miracle in my eyes if I only had the time to think, but time is exactly that which eludes me. Always focused. Always on track. That is all I can be, and it’s all I will ever be until my time is done.

In the future I am told to stop writing. No one will ever read anything I write because that’s what I am told. In the future everything I’m told is fact. I scribble feverishly day in and day out, but I cannot write anything good because I am told that no one will ever read anything that I write and that I should stop writing. I write for everyone. I appeal to every walk of life I can possibly imagine. Characters, places, times. All of these variables flow through my conscious without pause. I could relate to other people if only I knew what drives them. This will make people understand where I’m coming from. In the future I took everything I was told and let it go.