He was the greatest love of my life and he could not remember me.
Train station. Gray suit, black hat. He looked so sad coming in from the rain, I recognized him right away and nearly stumbled on the stairs in surprise. He was my quantum entanglement.
We went for coffee. Made small talk but mostly stared at each other. He had a beard now. He told me about his family, his background, his job. It had been 6 years since I last saw him and some things I already knew and some were new. He had an older sister with two German shepherds. He’d gotten married to a Russian chiropractor. He wore contact lenses now. He’d had a really rough day at work. He had large hands, graceful in their brute utility. I had an impulse to reach over and touch his hair just behind his ear to feel the wetness left by the rain. He asked me why I felt so familiar.
I talked about time and destiny, how time isn’t linear and this reality is a collective dream. Most people are sleeping but a few are awake. I told him the fallacy of reality is that people think reality is what happens to you, but you can create it. You can either be a character in a dream, or the dreamer. He agreed and was surprised—he’d never met someone who had these same private thoughts. I asked him what he thought about waking up. You could have everything that makes you happy, I said. He became excited at the idea but said he didn’t know what makes him happy. Me, I said. I make you happy. He gave me a shy smile.
We stood outside the diner, mesmerized by the rhythmic pounding of the rain against the street. I buried my hands inside his jacket and pressed my body into his, that beautiful body I knew so well. I’m married, he whispered, nervously. Still, he leaned in, breathing in my skin. The memory of what we were, are, and have always been blended into the present until I could no longer stand another moment of separation.
We made love in a nearby hotel. It is both starved and tender. After, I look him in the eyes and say, don’t forget me. And he laughs and says, how could I.
But he does. He always does.
when I wake, you will not remember me.
I awaken to find myself alone in my own bed. I check my phone to find I’ve slept through nearly the entire day. I scramble to the train station. I need to see him. I have no idea when the next time will be. He enters with the evening rush just as he had before. Gray suit. Black hat. Looking so sad my heart swells. I take him in, engraving a portrait to memory with the smell and feel of us, together, from the night before, from the lifetimes before. He notices me staring and we make eye contact, his eyes widening into a question, a flicker of recognition. I turn away and when I turn back, he is gone.Walking away from me, swallowed by the sea of bodies.
He is the greatest love of my life. We have crossed paths hundreds of times, since childhood. But every time we get close, time resets us.
I always remember. And he always forgets.