15. Silence

If time could be stopped, I would stop it.

Would I really, though?

My whole life has been about time. There wasn't a second it wasn't happening all around me. It has remained ever-changing, a new shade of grey for every new world I travel to. Time is most certainly grey. To me, that is. Astrid always tells me that she sees time in different colors, vibrant or dull, mixed or solid. That's simply who she is, though; if there wasn't color in the world, Astrid would likely not exist.

And she's the reason I want to stop all this grey, grey time. And again she refutes me. Time is happiness, she says. Time is memories. Time is color. It always comes back to color.

If I see time as grey, does it matter if it stops? If all is just quiet for a while? Silence is good, she quietly agrees. It can be vibrant in itself. Color, again. But she asks me if my grey time stops, what would I see? If no one could dance or talk or smile or cry–if one had only the ability to see. What good would it be? All I would see is grey. Grey eyes, grey lands, grey skies... Stone. What would my pause in time matter then? Even for her?

It's strange, though. She'll take my hand on foggy days and lead me gently to the bluffs. We've sat there for hours before, silent and wet with the dew of the nearing morning. All is quiet and all is grey. All time is blanketed around us, tucked in between our cold, touching fingers. There is no color there, but time is not suspended. Memories, happiness, time are spent there.

When I remind her of the grey around us, she smiles. The color is sleeping, warm and protected, right here, she says, and lifts up our clasped hands. 

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