THE TIME WEAVER
The time weaver watched from the pasture's edge as the young poet WALK TOWARD HER.
"I'm standing here in the woods like one of the narnia children," the time weaver thought once again. "A moment ago I was at the Time Conservatory. Now I am here. What is now will be the past. It will be my past, five hundred, twenty-seven years, three months and four days before I was born."
The time weaver had passed through the permeable membrane between now and then to create a defense against time, preventing this young poet from dying later this afternoon.
The time weaver's intervention was not permanent. Protected from the accident, the young poet would live and write more poems. There were only six extant. The time weaver read them to prepare herself to design the pod. The poems evoked feelings in the time weaver she preferred to keep buried deep within herself. It was better if she worked dispassionately, not attached to her subject in any way. Time weavers both gave their subjects an opportunity to live and then took it away. The time river permitted some modifications for a little while, but always resumed its shape. If the time weaver was not precise in her work, the reasserting eddies of time would damage many. The time weaver herself could be washed away, lost forever in some whirlpool or dashed to pieces by cataract. A well-woven pod withstood the pressure for the young poet's lifetime, but no more. At some future time, future time for the now older poet, the time weaver would spread her hands and break the woven pod. Time would resume its original shape. The young poet would again die young; however, the time weaver's time and all times afterwards, would have the poems written while the young poet lived beyond her time.
The young poet was unaware of the time weaver's presence. The summer foliage of the trees that hugged the pasture's edge obscured the time weaver from view. As the young poet drew nearer the time weaver flexed her fingers, her hands measuring the shape of the young poet's body in the air, deftly exploring her time aura. She touched the young poet's hair, feeling even at this distance its thickness and length as it spilled down across her slender shoulders and down her narrow back to first waist then slim hip and finally flat buttock. The time weaver traced the shape of the young poet's profile, the bones of her jaw, the angle of her chin, the delicateness of her throat. She massaged shoulders, cupped small hard breasts in her fingers, brushed erect nipples, caressed belly, thighs, ankles and then touched toes. The time weaver smiled, surreptitiously lingering between the young poet's legs. How many had she fondled in this way over the years? No wonder the time purists called her craft wicked. Her breath caught. She herself became wet, feeling the power of the young poet's sexual energy. Reluctantly. She withdrew her hand. Still aroused, more aroused than she cared to admit, she hurriedly composed herself to weave the pod
The time weaver must know the stature of this young poet to weave the pod to encapsulate the poet, protecting her from the accident that ended her life later this afternoon. The time weaver knew nothing of this accident, what it would be, how it would occur. Her director had given her only the file indicating when and where to intercept the young poet. Now she waited for the young poet to take just one more step before she began to weave.
The time weaver's art created no paradoxes. The pod allowed the occupant to interact normally, to love, to partner, to procreate, and to create without disturbing the time line. Those outside the pod were shielded from the reality inside the pod. When the time weaver tugged at the chords that bound her weaving together, the poet's life would unravel. What had occurred would only be wisps of regret, daydreams of what might have been.
It was time. The time weaver's hands moved, tracing in air the pod, its intricate lattice encircling the young poet's being. Again the time weaver felt the power of the young poet's sexuality .
And then something happened which had never happened before in all the history of time weaving. The young poet saw through the leaves the lead hand of the time weaver as she tied off the ends of the pod, securing it, protecting the young poet from real time. In that time of perception, the young poet saw her life as it really was and perceived the intent behind the time weaver's actions. And being a poet, she also perceived, though not clearly, the time weaver herself: her craft, her love of beautiful things, her deep loneliness, her desire for both solitude and companionship, her sexual desire and her attraction to the young poet. And while the pod was not yet closed completely, something passed between them.
Later the poet wrote many poems declaring her love for the almost unseen woman in the forest. These were passionate poems, filled with longing and desire, with dreams of union, of flight and pursuit, of exquisite physical consummation and a fulfilled soul. Future generations would keep her memory alive, savoring these poems of unrequited love, endlessly speculating on the identity of the not quite seen woman in the woods.
As for the time weaver, the young poet's love burned into her flesh, crippling her hands. She could no longer weave a sound pod. But only the time weaver who wove the pod could unweave it. So when it came time to unweave the poet's pod, the time weaver began, her nerve-damaged fingers struggling to untie the knots she had made. She worked slowly, partly because of her hands and partly because she was out of practice working with pods. The pod began to open. Slowly, slowly, the time weaver struggled to undo her weaving. She had been the most gifted of all the time weavers. When the pod had opened a mere hand's breadth, the poet, now old, her own hands bent with arthritis, again saw the time weaver's hand amid the leaves. The old poet reached out her own hand and grasped the time weaver's hand, not to stop her, but to pull her into the pod: first the fingers, then the hand and the wrist. Again the time weaver felt the fire. It moved up her arm. Unlike the first time, that other time, the time weaver welcomed the fire. She widened the opening into the pod, plunging her shoulder into the all-consuming fire. The poet pulled her into the fire, their heat burning the time weaver's face, her hair, her shoulder, and her breasts. As the fire spread further down her body, the time weaver became aware the poet held her in her arms, pressing her against the poet's own body as the pod collapsed around them.
When the final strand of the pod unraveled poet and time weaver were finally joined, setting the forest at the edge of the pasture aflame.
