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Like Time In The Petals Of A Passion Flower

By

Nickolas J. Hoog

High above the sand dunes of forgetfulness and clusters of the spiteful lakes of question stands a mountain, both great and tall. Its incalculable vastness mystifies many, and often leaves them with neck aches—when attempted to view it’s peak (from its base). Mist veils the mountain's top with dew covered ridges and plagues that sweep away all remembrance from that which travels on its many paths. 

What name is to be brought to such a depleting mount? Time, ah’ yes, Time. And on its peak, rumor has it, lays an even more peculiar entity. A possessor of the mountain, who controls its life-binding power; the power to forget. What creature could have such an authoritative power? Gargantua, a rare Passion Flower. Now, this is not just any flower however, but one that has been touched by the blood of a great sorcerer named Melatoris, who was being executed near the ground it is nestled in.

This blood enabled Gargantua to have only one wish. And so, it demanded the power of “Time” so that it may erase the remembrance of Melatoris’s brutal attack. When Gargantua tried to banish the memory, he found that it was impossible, because in doing so he would forget ever receiving this gift. Therefore, in a bitter act of rancorous anguish he cursed “Time” so that whosoever walks along its path should be cursed with forgetfulness. 

In the same surreal setting as a passion flower would open its petals - displaying its forgotten majesty - my abandoned memories recollect. I have forgotten the tales I spoke of as a child (who at the time couldn’t understand the blossoming I would soon project). Maybe someday, I will scurry about as one whose papers are blowing away in the wind, and in the same way assemble my vague child-day memories.

When a Passion Flower comes to mind, I think of how memories I thought I had done my best to memorize wither. I am beginning to realize that time is a process that leads to forgetfulness. Year, after year, after year—that all somehow bleed into one—leave me feeling a bit weary of life and age. How many more things am I to forget and become less interested in? Will I remember myself today thirty years from now? Probably not, and that shudders me as one faced with a depleting reflection of what inevitably will be themselves.

I, a climber of “Time,” have been cursed to forget. Memories drip from a leak within my recollection; that somehow can’t be repaired—but rather need to be found, for they are lost somewhere in time. I voyage through reminiscence and indecisiveness on a summoned ship that is led by no stars or by any compass, but is guided blindly though this forgetful course.

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