All the Time Anyone Could Ever Need

It takes time, but then everything takes time. Everything takes time and does not give it back. The time is gone… gone forever. You will never know what it was she was going to say on that day on the riverbank as you sat together watching the swans sailing by as if they had all the time in the world, all the time anyone could ever need.

She turned away, said it didn’t matter and got up, walked away. Those words remained unsaid, stolen by that moment in time. That time too, must have stolen something from her because she was never the same again, at least not for those last few days before she said goodbye and was gone… gone forever.

Then she was gone, stolen by time and out of reach. You didn’t realise at the time – time again, you see – that it was those words that she had never said, floating away down that river into the past that held the secret.

For days, weeks afterwards you would, whenever you could find the time (time again, it gets everywhere) make your way back to that place on the river. You’d go just to watch the swans swim by, hoping that one day – somehow – that time might float by itself again, and only this time she would turn to you and tell you what was on her mind and – somehow – you’d make it right again.

Time, though, never comes back… and neither did she.