Time and Forgiveness

Chapter 2: Time and Forgiveness" "Aaron is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster. This happened because Aaron made a mistake." "Not just one. He made many mistakes during the time they spent together, all those years ago. Memories of their relationship have become muddled, replaced wholesale, but one remains clear: the princess turning sharply away, her braid lashing at him with contempt." "He knows she tried to be forgiving, but who can just shrug away a guilty lie, a stab in the back? Such a mistake will change a relationship irreversibly, even if we have learned from the mistake and would never repeat it. The princess's eyes grew narrower. She became more distant." "Our world, with its rules of causality, has trained us to be miserly with forgiveness. By forgiving them too readily, we can be badly hurt. But if we've learned from a mistake and became better for it, shouldn't we be rewarded for the learning, rather than punished for the mistake?" "What if our world worked differently? Suppose we could tell her: 'I didn't mean what I just said,' and she would say: 'It's okay, I understand,' and she would not turn away, and life would really proceed as though we had never said that thing? We could remove the damage but still be wiser for the experience." "Aaron and the Princess lounge in the castle garden, laughing together, giving names to the colorful birds. Their mistakes are hidden from each other, tucked away between the folds of time, safe." "Chapter 3: Time and Mystery" "All those years ago, Aaron had left the Princess behind. He had kissed her on the neck, picked up his travel bag, and walked out the door. He regrets this, to a degree. Now he's journeying to find her again, to show her knows how sad it was, but also to tell her how good it was." "For a long time, he thought they had been cultivating the perfect relationship. He had been fiercely protective, reversing all his mistakes so they would not touch her. Likewise, keeping a tight rein on her own mistakes, she always pleased him." "But to be fully couched within the comfort of a friend is a mode of existence with severe implications. To please you perfectly, she must understand you perfectly. Thus you cannot defy her expectations or escape her reach. Her benevolence has circumscribed you, and your life's achievements will not reach beyond the map she has drawn." "Aaron needed to be non-manipulable. He needed a hope of transcendence. He needed, sometimes, to be immune to the Princess's caring touch." "Off in the distance, Aaron saw a castle where the flags flutter even when the wind has expired, and the bread in the kitchen is always warm. A little bit of magic." "Chapter 4: Time and Place" "Visiting his home for a holiday meal, Aaron felt as though he had regressed to those long-ago years when he lived under their roof, oppressed by their insistence on upholding strange values which, to him, were meaningless. Back then, bickering would erupt over drops of gravy spilt onto the tablecloth." "Escaping, Aaron walked in the cool air toward the university he'd attended after moving out of his parent's home. As he distanced himself from that troubling house, he felt the embarrassment of childhood fading into the past. But now he stepped into all the insecurities he'd felt at the university, all the panic of walking a social tightrope." "Aaron only felt relieved after the whole visit was over, sitting back home in the present, steeped in contrast he saw how he'd improved so much from those old days. This improvement, day by day, takes him ever-closer to finding the Princess. If she exists - she must! - she will transform him, and everyone." "He felt on his trip that every place stirs up an emotion, and every emotion invokes a memory: a time and location. So couldn't he find the Princess now, tonight, just by wandering from place to place and noticing how he feels?