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my life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?
-- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
i.
your revolution will not be remembered until victor hugo writes about in thirty years; but you stand as defiant as the sun in front of a firing squad, ready to die for france, for the people.
you’re also ready to die alone. but out from the shadows he wakes from his drunken, dreamless sleep. the guards are too shocked to shoot at him as he makes his way to you,
stumbling over debris like a martyr. two with one shot, yes? he says to them as he stands at your side. you tremble as he reaches for your hand. we’ll find each other, cher, he promises.
you raise the flag in your free hand, red as the blood that surrounds you, and the guards shoot the two of you like dogs. eight bullets in your chest and he falls at your feet.
how long will it be before you see each other again?
ii.
it takes you a long time to find him. not that your realize that’s what you’re doing. not until you see him walk into your bookstore. he’s familiar, but you don’t recall his face. you’re staring and
not being subtle about it. he grins fox-like before saying, do i have something on my face?
no, sorry...it’s been a slow morning. he goes back to browsing, you go back to bookkeeping.
your lazy, fat cat jumps on the desk as you work, purring loudly. then he comes to to make his purchases and there is something about his smile you know.
it isn’t until weeks later when he has his tongue in your mouth that you remember gunpowder and wine, his fingers knotted through yours and the sound of cannon fire. you gasp and he grins.
there you are, he says.
you reach for his wrist, finding the leaf-shaped birthmark, running your thumb across his pulse.
here i am.
iii.
you’re caught in a war again, but you know him the second you see him, even without seeing his wrist. but he doesn’t know you yet. he’s rough as sandpaper, jagged as crags, like an exposed
nerve. so, you bide your time, you take his verbal abuse (which he hurls at everyone) while trying to stay alive. you almost forget about him, despite his intense gaze tracking you, until one
day he softens, just a bit. he smiles at you, that smile you love, and asks for a cigarette. you take that as a good sign, your heart fluttering like a bee. a few nights later, in a wet foxhole, he
reaches for your hand.
i know that it’s you. i knew the second i saw you. he doesn’t look at you as he confesses like a sinner. he’s never been one to lay open his heart. i was scared.
why? your throat almost closes.
what if you die here? i’d have to wait all over again.
how long have you been waitin’?
a long time, cher. he kisses you senseless, knocking the helmet from your head, the breath from
your lungs. in your mind’s eye, you see the blueprints of a nice long life together this time around. as long as you can keep him on the train.
iv.
you’re floating. you’re everywhere and nowhere at the same time. you see all your lives playing out on screens around you, like a multimedia event. this is the greatest scientific discovery of the
last thousand years; the positive proof and experience of relativity. your weak heart beats like a drum and you’re as light as helium. but then someone removes the helmet from your head and
you find yourself in your lab, on your table. no more colors, no more floating. just the sterile whiteness of the lab.
that was dumb, he says from next to you. same crooked grin, same mountain lake eyes. you’ve loved him for hundreds of years and lifetimes, and there will always be more. you will exist
infinitely, large and small, always falling together like protons and neutrons.
did this give you brain damage? he asks, taking your chin and examining your eyes.
you feel your goofy smile. i did it, you say, grabbing his wrist. i figured it out.
what?
us.
v.
you exist now as you are, a twenty-year-old museum docent, and as a middle-aged man three hundred miles away. a war vet studying birds. you’ll never meet, but you know
he’s--you’re there. time is not linear, you learned (though you don’t know when) and neither is space. the other you is in the middle of his long life with your lake-eyed partner, while the you
that you are has just begun.
sledgehammer, he calls from the other side of the bed. the nickname that the old and present him
use. a beautiful drawl from a lopsided grin.
hmm? you turn your head from the window.
he’s on his side, staring at you. that gaze that you can feel from across the room, across time. the sun makes his brown skin glow gold, and his eyes match the color of the crater lake.
what’re you lookin’ at?
nothing.
nothin’, he parrots. kiss me.
kiss me, you snicker and you meet in the middle of the bed, centuries shared on your lips.
vi.
the artificial earth on which you live is a lot like earth of the past, you think. most people don’t remember the real earth; it’s just a glittery blue speck in the sky now. but you know the feel of
hot alabama grass under your back and the taste of the pacific ocean, your skin burning from the yellow sun. the sun in this system is red and easier on your shoulders and nose.
you sit on a park bench and your daughter is on the swingset, laughing with a new friend. another girl about her age. they both squeal like puppies as their swings go higher.
a man comes to sit next to you, dark-haired and thin, a familiar shape and smile to him. he smells like spearmint leaves and sage, plants that you know are extinct.
i’ve been waitin’ for you, he says.
me?
he touches the top of your hand and the world comes into focus, like all the times before. you take his wrist, knowing the leaf birthmark will be there, but you love the thrill that catches
in your stomach each time you find it. i hope it wasn’t too long this time, you say.
oh, you’re always worth the wait.