A Letter to the Old Man Claiming to be Me.

Greetings, old friend,

Forty-nine. Jesus. I never thought I'd make it to twenty-five, let alone fifty. And yet here you are, and here I am, intertwined across space and time. The same man, different bodies, spread out across thirty years, merging together, transforming into each other, one cell at a time, you going backwards, me forwards.

I don't know what kind of time-breaking tomfoolery took place to allow such a conversation to happen, that is, of course, the one happening now, between me and you. I was tempted to write "between me and myself" there, but I hate to lie, even if for literary purposes. You are like an alien to me. No, not like. You are an alien to me. A creature from a distant future, speaking an unknown language, thinking in unknown truths.

 

And yet they are known. And yet you know them so I must know them. How strange, to know and not know something. And yet it is so common, something we all experience, something we all know and don’t know, but something we don’t talk of, at least, not until we are very old, or very unwell.

Time is, evidently, not as people say it is. It is not a straight line, a trip from point A to point B, a train ride, a brisk walk from one moment to the next, a cause and an effect. No, time is merely a memory, or, perhaps, just a reflection, a pondering, a brief and gentle thought early in the morning, or very late at night. No, there is no past or present, and there is certainly no future, it's all just a memory, a voice in the back of your head, a face that lingers in your dreams.

Everyone’s life is a mountain, everyone stands in a great and spiralling queue. And when we look back, it's just us, over and over and over, each one previous a second younger than the last, all the way to the bottom, where a baby, still wrapped in its hospital blanket, lays, watching, staring upwards, waiting. And when we look ahead all we see is us, over and over and over, each one a second older than the previous, until the line reaches the top and you are old and grey, or at least, as old and grey as you’ll ever be, and then you watch as that old man/woman/etc.  jumps, plummets, hits the ground, with a horrid splat, a baby's first cry, and the stepping forward of the next oldest you. 

We, you and me, exist together, spread out across thirty years. We are two people claiming to be one. We are two in a long and spiralling queue, consisting entirely of ourselves.

I know my future like I know my past - in memories, in muffled voices and fading faces. I see you smile and I see you cry because I see myself smile and I see myself cry. We cry at the same things. We smile at the same people. We are one and we are two. We are the same and we are alien. We are the past and we are the future. We are one and we are two.

'Write a letter to your future self' they say. But there's no such thing. Time is not as everyone says it is. It is a muffled voice, a fading face. Time is a memory. A memory of you. And, perhaps, a memory of me. 

Stay in touch, old friend.

Don't be a stranger, old friend.