The Traveler

Everyone was dead. And yet, they gasped as they took the first breath of life.

Peace was universal, as was war.

The earth was scarred and barren, but was more fertile and full of life than ever before.

I walked among lives that struggled for every heartbeat. I observed those that never wanted for anything. It was all the same to me, and it was always unique.

Events raged all around, happening on top of each other. A mushroom cloud rose over Hiroshima as an Aztec priest held a still beating heart above his head. A chimpanzee watched as a chainsaw spewed the life blood of the Amazon, while men froze to death searching for the North Pole. A meteor wiped life off of the planet as man triumphed over science and religion.

Time was flowing around me. I reached out my hand and felt the waves throb beneath my fingers.

Spanish galleons sank with untold treasure, lightning struck a lone tree in the Sahara, innocents screamed as they were slaughtered by a madman who painted watercolors.

I slowed the tide of time.

A man sat at a table. He was clothed in a simple tunic, and scratched at his beard thoughtfully. A light shone in his eyes. An idea sparked within the recesses of his mind and as it grew, so did the smile on his crafty face. His name was Archimedes, but his deeds rippled through out history.

The waves gently pushed me back, and I let them. The ebb and flow returned as my eyes closed, and when I opened them again I was in the twenty third century.

The world held one unifying currency, and government and religion were one. Freedom was a dream, nothing more. And dreams had no place here.

I moved on.

Once I had tried to change the course of this world. To see if a simple action could mold the future, like diverting the course of a river. I failed.

I had not accounted for this euphoric feeling that consumed every fiber of my being. The rush of living and the pain of dying. The memories, sensations and ideas, of humans and animals. I could not leave the stream for more than a few seconds. But I didn't want to.

It was all around me. Within me.

I was Time.