It Happens Backwards

“So, tell me, how did you do it?”

“Do what, Skye?”

“Have you been a part of this conversation, Chris?” The voice was pointed, but riddled with a humor only they could share. He looked around, as if trying to find the other person in the room he must have been talking to this whole time. It was part of their game. What anything became when words left their mouths directed towards one another. He knew Chris had been paying attention; far more than most. To things like the sadness in a waitress’ eyes when her mind was elsewhere, or the momentary hesitation in the breath of someone on the verge of saying something before they chose not to.

Chris was always paying attention. Which is why Skye knew Chris had to have known how he had done it. Even if no one else did.

The two had been close since the beginning. Perhaps not long enough, still, to really know anyone, but long enough to understand Chris’ way of things. He had a penchant for making conversations as much a playful game between two old friends as they were, in retrospect, meaningful and significant lessons. Wide as they were deep, as they were often caught saying when attempting to explain how you could start a conversation in one place, mood, or timeframe, and end up somewhere completely different in the span of a breath.

The knowing of this made Skye even more eager to hear the story being kept from him by the faint smirk across the table. Enough to miss. Enough to notice.

Silence filled the dimly lit room, until Skye broke it with a sigh. There was a dance to this, and he knew it. Life was too short not to enjoy yourself, and the company of another, even in the meaningful. Perhaps, especially in the meaningful. This they could both agree upon. The argument over whom imparted this feeling upon whom, however, was still up for debate. And of no matter, now.

He needed to know.

”Fine. Have it your way’”, Skye paused, leaning back in his chair near the fire. Eyes narrowed, as if upon the words he would choose next. “How did you manage to win when you’ve never competed before? Never given your writing a chance, DESPITE my incessant prodding…” He was all gestures; animated as if trying to make sure Chris heard him clearly.

“…Then, one day, you just decide to do it, and like that…”, he snapped his fingers, “…we have a new author on our hands.” He tilted his head to the side; a dangerous look that said your turn. “That. That’s what I would like you to tell me about.”

“I don’t know if I would say new author. That’s a rather large leap. It’s $20,000, and…”

“Oh, cut the bullshit,” he leaned forward, physically cutting him off. But it was in a brotherly way; a manner that prevented someone from lessening themselves or skirting an issue. “You were paid for your writing. That makes you one. You can manipulate the story all you like and argue over this word or that, but it doesn’t change things. We both know, with that smile on your face, that you said you would do something, and you did it. That means something.”

The smile upon Chris’ face morphed back into a smirk. “Well, now you know, then.”

“Know what?” Skye’s demeanor shifted, too. Whereas Chris seemed to have certainty, Skye now had doubt.

“The answer to your question. How I won.”

“Which was…”

Chris looked around the room, like his interrogator. “Have you not been a part of this conversation, Skye?”

Their faces mirrored each other, as smirk begot smirk. Of course; there wasn’t any other way to talk about such things between old friends.

“The joke isn’t as funny the second time, you know.” Skye shifted in his seat, debating his move. “Ok, fine. I’ll bite. You just did it, that’s your answer?”

“Not at all.”

“I swear I hate you at times.”

“I love you, too.”

Another sigh. Skye gathered his breath, and replayed the conversation in his head, locked in a chess game with words for the pieces and expressions as the checks. He found the missing piece before long.

“You said you would do it, and you did.”

“Mmmmhmmm.” Chris nodded, as his eyes to drifted back to the fire.

“And that’s your secret?” Another pause. When no response came, he pushed further. “Say, and do? Problems of the world solved, dreams at your fingertips, life you wish to live around the bend?”

“Well, that’s only part of it.”

“Why do I even talk to you?”

“Do you know why I like watching the fire?” Chris continued, before he could be interrupted. “It reminds me of creation. Which is probably strange, to most; it’s mostly destruction before the eyes. But that’s what creation takes; taking something apart, and putting it back together in just the right way that it becomes beautiful and warm to someone that might be left out in the cold.”

“You sound crazy. They might take the win back if you keep that up.”

“Aren’t all the best people crazy? Or is that just something the crazy people say?”

Skye shook his head, a chuckle escaping despite his best intentions. “OK, enough wandering. Keep going; I’d like the rest before I commit you.”

But Chris did not continue. Not with words, at least. Instead, he reached into his jacket, as if feeling for his heartbeat, and emerged with something from an inside pocket. A little, black book, no larger than the palm of his hand. Something easy to miss, or think nothing of. But Skye knew better. Chris associated meaning with things like this. The book was a portal to whatever it was Skye was looking for. His hands tightened upon his chair in anticipation.

It was set down upon the table between them. Innocently, as if freeing himself from the weight of it burning a hole in his pocket. Skye wanted that book, but he would never reach for it. It was the kind of thing that had to be given.

“We’ve had many great conversations, haven’t we?”

“Always.” Skye responded instantly, then doubled back. “Mostly.”

They talked through the ensuing laugh.

“There is a type of Jellyfish, called the Turritopis dohrnii…”

“Jellyfish?”

“Skye…”

All gestures and no words. Lips sealed, key in the fireplace, leaning back into the chair, waiting for his answer.

Chris shook his head. He was grateful for a friend like this.

“This Jellyfish can age in reverse. It plays life backwards, getting younger and younger until it basically starts it’s life over again.”

“So it can live forever?”

Chris raised an eyebrow and glanced into the flames, where Skye had thrown the key, then back to him with an amused look on his face. It was a question that didn’t need words.

“I have a spare?” Skye shrugged innocently.

Chris ignored him. “Living forever is not the important part. Although, I guess in a way, it’s relevant. What we leave behind that lives forever, long after we are gone, is what really matters here. Things like love. Joy. The messages we plant in others so they can follow their own paths with the lessons we learned along the way…”

“Jellyfish…”, Skye nudged him.

“Jellyfish,” he smiled. “They start from the end, and work their way back. I realized: why not do the very same thing?”

Skye said nothing, despite the opportunity to poke and prod. They were about to wade into the deep end. There was a sacredness, even between the two of them, when toes wandered this far.

“I asked myself who I wanted to be. At the end of it all. What kind of person would be standing there, at the close of the story? Would I be proud of that person? What they had done, and how they had lived? Would they be my hero, today, if I met them here and now, by this fire…”

A silence filled the room, but it was not the empty sort. It was the loud kind, that said a lot, and felt heavy.

“…and if they were my hero, how could I reach that place? How could I make it there, where I had never been; how could I, with certainty, make sure I smile at the end of my story, with no regrets, knowing I had climbed my mountains?”

Chris looked down, at the little black book.

“It happens backwards.” Skye filled in the blank, beginning to understand. “A destination, and then a route.”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds simple. Everyone says it’s not that simple, you know.”

“The secret is that it is. It always is.” Chris drifted off. “I started with how I hoped it would end, and found what I had to do to work towards that ending. What I needed to change; what I needed to let go of, or hold on to. They say writers write. Simple…but maybe it is, in the end.” He smiled, softly. “You just decide to do it, and then you do. And in the doing, you become the kind of person that would do such things. Maybe not right away, but over time. Like most everything.”

The smile was not wry, like before. It was a peaceful sort, one that Skye had never seen written upon his face. The kind that spoke of transcendence, from the limitations of being less than you want to be today, to the realization that anything could happen tomorrow.

Skye’s eyes drifted to the book. “So, what does that have to do with this?”

“That’s the missing piece. That’s how I won.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” Chris leaned forward, pushing the book towards Skye. “You know me better than anyone. I want to leave my fingerprint on as much as possible; not so that people know me, but so that they know how it feels to be loved, to matter, to have someone see who they are but also who they could be. What the world could be. But all of that is just a nice story in my head, and we both know stories that live only in our minds are useless. Meaningless.”

“Until you put them into the world.”

Chris tapped the side of his head, and nodded. “This is me putting it into the world.”

He stood, a symbolic end to the conversation and the chess match that had ended in a tie, as it often did between them. The goal was never to win, but to understand. To share a moment, a piece of time, the only real currency they had, playing the game of life together. As he passed Skye, he placed a hand on his shoulder; a wordless thanks to a man that cared enough to ask.

Skye waited, his hand upon his chin in thought as his eyes examined the book at his side. All his answers, within reach. A gift from a friend, that trusted him with his secret.

He reached for it.

It felt heavy in his hands, not physically, but symbolically. The pages turned easily.

It was profound in its emptiness.

Blank page upon blank page. Completely absent of writing, he thought, until he reached what he was searching for.

The first and only entry, with a single line recorded upon its page. A simple idea, with no date and less context.

“Who might I become, if I lived like I was that person already?”

Skye smiled. Of course; Chris had put it into the world, in the most literal sense of things. He had marked down a destination, and then acted as if he had already reached it.

Sometimes, the magic of it was in the simple. In the doing, until it is done.

Skye picked up a pen and finished the written thought for him. Filling in the blank left by a friend.

“It happens backwards.”