Four Letter Words

The woman is older, her smile a little less soft. She still twists the ring around her finger. It’s worn, now, from all the worrying, but the woman would never let it get dirty. She stares out the window at the crows.

The woman sighs. She seems to be doing a lot of that lately.

“I’ve found the right example, my love. It took me a while, but I managed.”

She pauses.

“Time is a cycle of four-letter words, not including its own name.”

If this were Before, she would have smiled.

“Love.

You chuckle as you dance with her, a melody drifting through the air. Her eyes are bright as they look at you, adoring.

A man and his ‘best friend’ stand on their balcony and stare at the city as the top of the sun brushes their mountains.

“Come back here, okay?” she tells you.

“Hope.

You think about her everyday you’re gone. It’s not as bad for you, though. You have things to keep you occupied while you wait to return. She’s alone, but you’re too far away to apologise.

A boy sits quietly at a campfire, swaying to the beat of a song he’s heard and sung so often.

“Wish. Full. Home. Feel. Hers,” your heart whispers.

“And wait.

Seconds stretch painfully. Every minute away makes your heart hurt a little more, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.

A girl cries alone in a cavern, deep in space. Far away, a slice of chocolate cake sits uneaten on the nice china her mother takes out of the cupboard once a year.

“Late,” you think.

“Sometimes the cycle is circular, and you return to love.

You’re so close. She’s almost there. At the same time, you’re so far away.

“Soon,” you pray.

“Other times, the cycle is a little more complex. Sometimes, other four-letter words appear. Like hate.

She throws things; shatters windows; is a little more broken with every crack in the furniture.

“It’s not fair!” she screams, but it’s far too late for that now.

“But eventually, you return.

She has stood at her place by the window for decades, years, centuries, months, millenniums, weeks, ages, days, epochs, hours, eras, minutes, aeons, seconds.

She loves.

She hopes.

She waits.

“It’s like rain. It’s huge and important for all life, but when it falls like background music on quiet days, all you can do is sigh and smile. It’s so quiet that you can tune it out; forget that it’s there. Or you can tune in and listen to its bittersweet symphony. Sometimes, its steady thrum is a metronome, pushing you forwards. Other times, it allows you to stop – to look outside a window and let your thoughts wander and wonder. Sometimes it shocks you with its presence – too much all at once. The drains can’t handle it, but eventually, it spills out into the sea.

“Rain is often accompanied by lighting, which is where this metaphor slips a little. Children are so free from the shackles of time, and yet they fear lightning. Those without much time smile at the children as they hide under their beds. Though I suppose that children fear the lighting because it is something unfamiliar. We know how dangerous lighting is, and yet we know it is inevitable, so we don’t fear it.

"I might fear it, though. A little. I'm frightened enough that I can't say its real name for fear it'll strike me where I stand. Nevertheless, I hope that when I do meet lightning, it isn't, well, a shock, if you will." The woman chuckles but slowly, her smile fades. "I hope that when I meet it, it embraces me like the old friend that it is.

“I’ve learnt here, by this window, waiting for you. Time is like rain, and life is a game you play against fate and luck to the beat of its steady, rhythmic flow. Important background noise. Small but big. Everything and nothing. You and me. Everywhere, always, summed up in four letters.”

The woman removes the ring from around her finger and sets it on the windowsill, casting one last look at the six crows outside.

Time.

Four less soft still ring worn crow sigh love name eyes look best city Come back here, okay? hope gone have keep wait away sits beat song sung Wish. Feel. Home. Full. Hers. hurt more cake nice once year Late same Soon pray hate Fair like huge fall days hour life tune push stop much spill free fear hide know game play fate luck beat flow last.

Rain.

She gives the ring a pat, a forbidden farewell, and steps away from the window.

“Good luck, love,” she whispers, conceding her post. You don’t hear it, but you never will, nor were you supposed to.

The universe acknowledges the words, though. The rustling of the trees and grasses, the chirping of birds, the buzzing of bees, the fall of rain, the trickling of a creak. They pause, for a small moment, just to listen.

Good luck, they murmur reverently, like a prayer. They examine the words, tasting them on their lips before passing them on to the next cricket, leaf, gecko, or mushroom.

The sixth crow from the field flies to the window and snatches the ring from the sill. With a few beats of its shiny wings, it’s soaring through forests, over deserts and oceans, around skyscrapers and telephone poles.

At some point, it drops the ring.

Good luck.

It falls into a gutter and is hidden by a leaf. It’s washed down a drain and into the ocean.

It’s eaten by a fish.

The fish is eaten by a shark.

The ring comes out the other end of the shark.

The tides escort the ring to a beach.

It’s built into a sandcastle accidentally during a competition between three women (the loser buys lunch).

It’s picked up by a child collecting shells before being discarded.

A dog sniffs it.

During a storm, it’s carried to a different beach.

The cycle continues.

Good luck.

It’s a man who finds the ring eventually. He’d come to the beach to clear his head, but he stops his frantic pacing once he sees something glimmering in the sand. He bends slowly, picking it up and turning it over in his hands a few times.

He smiles slowly, shyly, before pocketing the ring.

Well, he thinks, if this isn’t the universe giving me my answer, then I don’t know what is.

Then, the man goes to the shops and buys more milk – his soon-to-be-fiancé likes too much of it in his coffee.

From there, the ring becomes an engagement ring.

Then a wedding ring.

Then a family heirloom.

Good luck.

It gets lost.

A boy finds it near a campfire and considers it a birthday gift from the universe.

It must’ve fallen out of the previous camper’s bag, he thinks, slipping it onto his finger.

He wears it for several years before he finds a girl crying in a hospital. She tells him her mother is sick. He gives her the ring and tells her it’s his good luck charm. She brightens and thanks him.

Good luck.

The girl grows, the ring threaded through a string and tied around her neck.

Her mother survives.

However, once she is diagnosed with the same illness, she does not.

She gives the ring to her daughter,

who gives it to her son,

and his daughter,

and her child,

and their son,

and his daughter.

The daughter, devoid from anything familiar other than the few worn possessions she managed to sneak aboard her ship, twirls the ring around her finger.

She misses home.

She misses rain.

It kissed her cheeks and made her brother grumpy. It ruined her plans and flooded her school. She could dance in it forever because it was just as free as she felt. It was like time itself stopped – she had no place to be, no one demanding anything of her.

Time. Rain. Free. Ring.

Good luck, love.