Have you ever stood at the edge of your own time, toes curled over the brink, peering into the churn of hours and minutes?
When the clock struck thirteen, I felt it. A tug just under the skin. A call towards something unseen. When it ceased to be defineable in numerical terms, I stepped forth. The landscape shifted beneath my feet as I stepped. One step out of the ordinary, and here I was, on a distant shore of time.
The horizon never faltered, but everything in between spoke of a place not tethered to yesterday or tomorrow. The sky was a saturation of amber and indigo, hues flickering like an old film strip caught in a projector's grasp. Silence was an echo of forgotten voices, resonating in a spectrum unseen.
Nearby, familiar trees stood unwavering, but their roots clasped stones worn smooth by eons rather than seas. I knelt, tracing my fingers over inscriptions long settled into the unforgiving grip of stone. Who knows when they were carved — or who left them as warnings or welcomes? In times like these, the when mattered less than the why. Yet comfort lay in the constancy of these ancient sentinels.
Narratives of otherworldly passageways often romanticized the encounter, filled with grandeur and unfathomable sights. What they neglect to acknowledge, I found, was the peculiar reality of mundane marvels. The breeze smelled of an ambery musk, a scent timeless, as if it collected particles from every whispered secret sung by the galaxies.
After wandering among stars above distant seas and standing in the shadows of trees with their otherworldly roots, I return. But returns are never the same, even when footprints indent the familiar earth. Each mark carries stories of unvisited dimensions behind veils caught in the moments between breaths.