In the flickering glow of once-predictable horizons, the fog of a forgotten epoch hovers. I walk through corridors not of my design, where futures wept for paths now choked with incorrect choices and unrealized possibilities. There was a spark once, to the engine of time - a pulse, a promise, misfired perhaps, but insistent in its disobedience.
Contemplation settles here like dust, as I ponder planetary rotations untouched by human hands yet burdened with stories unspoken. How swiftly the temporal petals fall without song or dance. Our footprints, a stubborn stain upon the fabric of a universe that dared to dream unperturbed chaos.
Could we have spun the wheel differently, swept our fingers across the dials with reverence rather than haste? Was the misfire in our souls designed by architects unseen, compelling us to navigate the crooked paths of destiny? Explore the possibilities that didn't resonate with our choices.
Here, I am a cartographer of the absent present, tracing lines that never were on maps that have yet to be drawn. Each stroke a memory of a time that squints in denial, each route an echo that whispers of alternates unexplored. The gates remain ajar, beckoning with the ken of future's sharp sight.
Eternal reflections in an eddy of existence. As the local stars begin to flicker one final farewell, I linger. Not in regret, but in solitude - amidst the quiet symphony of inevitables unmet and eternities unlived.