tales for dreamers: guardians of time

In the beginning, there was only eternity.

Then Time was wrought into existence to give us a means to measure all that was finite and perishable, all that was mortal.

Harrumph! We all know how well that worked out, for truth be told, Time has been anything but precise.

Speeding up happiness, slowing down agony, snatching precious moments and tucking them into the hidden folds of the universe, the list of Time’s mischiefs have quickly grown to be too long to recount.

Some said it was the past that was slowing down Time, his baggage of memories had become too great a burden to bear lightly, while others reckoned Time’s journey into the future has always been one of haste.

The Gods were at their wits’ end and pondered for days (or was it weeks or months? Time was too unreliable back then to tell!) until they agreed upon a suitable solution to tame the vicissitudes of Time.

All the memories of the past were to be entrusted to the Lion, all the dreams of the future to the Unicorn.

And as for Time himself, he was to remain in the present moment, bridging the past and the future, but belonging to neither.

I cannot fathom a punishment more cruel than a life devoid of memories and dreams, and so I tell Time how sorry I am for his ordeal.

But he simply smiles and insists that in being present, he too has become eternal.