Time vs John Lennon

An invisible hero story

It was dusk and the park across the street, in full blossom, was shivering in the last sunbeams.

Now’s the time, she told herself, watching it from the halo window in the attic.

She went down the stairs to her room, changed her clothes and took one last look at the contents of the drawers in her desk. There were her letters to John, pictures of him and Yoko cut out from magazines, the one tape she owned of his music. She grabbed the scrap of paper where she’d taken down the words for I’m stepping out. She knew the words by heart, but written across the paper, they might be her talisman.

She walked straight to the park, as if walking on clouds.

The park’s so eerie now that it won’t be hard to lose this reality. What if I go to sleep and I wake up tomorrow morning on a park bench? Hold on: what’s going to happen to me? No, I mustn’t think about that now.

What if everything’s going to be just a dream? What if I go to sleep and I only dream that I made it, and then the park janitor wakes me up?

What’s it going to be like, being there? Am I going to be there, for real?

I got to!

I hope no one busts in.

And above all, I mustn’t be afraid, I mustn’t, I mustn’t!

She found a spot where there might be no intruders. It was under an old lilac bush, surrounded by irises and daffodils. If she looked over the flowering jasmine, she could see the hazy lake. She could hear frogs and occasional bird squawks in the distance, while lying under the lilac, eyes closed.

Okay, hush now. Quiet. A lot of quiet. I’m stepping out.

The flood of thoughts slowed down, until only one was left, hanging like a thread.

I’m stepping out.

The words dripped off one by one, like drops off the rim of a cup, into emptiness. They were the same, again and again, like the strikes of a clock, echoing in a vast, empty room. I’m stepping out.

The lilac blossom came down and landed on her eyelids, cheeks, and lips with a caress. The sound and touch vanished in a bottomless abyss. She felt she was plunging into herself, drawn by a force she could not, and would not, resist. The seconds raced past her, or she did past them, catching them up, seeing their faces turned to her, running past and leaving them behind. In that race, she covered vast spaces within herself and countless seconds in the universe. She hung between two worlds.

She felt a light touch on her eyelids. It was the last flower falling from the lilac bush in a park, and the first ray of light.

She opened her eyes and saw the bright sky. Nothing seemed to have changed. There were already early boat rowers on the lake. The flowers and the blossoming bushes were still there, too. Dew on the grass.

She must have been dreaming, then.

All because of the intoxicating fragrance of the lilac and the jasmine!

She left her spot carefully, although no one was around. She went out into the street. The same houses and the same little shops.

Just —

An old-fashioned car swerved round the corner. A woman came out of the bookshop, dressed like — in another decade.

The streets were the same, but the people were different. Or —  they might be the same, just younger.

No! She’d made it! Here it was, her town, same streets, but a different time.

She had to hurry to the station. Once there, she got herself a ticket to the big city.

She’d stood on the platform so many times, waiting for trains of no consequence. Now, she would finally board the big one.

***

It was three thirty in the afternoon. At four, she would find John at the corner of this street, walking to the park. At five thirty, he’d be back out of the park, and at ten thirty he’d be walking home. In front of his house, he would be shot dead.

While he was in the park, she had to play the card of her life. And of his life, too: at that point, his life became tied to hers.

At four, she saw John from afar, and she watched him as he strolled towards the park entrance. It felt as if she’d known him forever. That bouncing step, chin up, gazing around while seeming in a world of his own, a faint smile on his thin lips. His eyes met hers for a second, before he passed by. She knew: when she was back home, she would return a million times just to this moment.

She checked back into reality and noticed the stranger lurking behind John. That man must be erased from the picture!

She hurried on a side alley to catch up with John, and waited for him in front of a parterre of roses. And there he came from round a corner, suddenly facing her, briefly recognising her, but walking on. Her face lightened up and she rushed to him. He stopped, wondering, while she hugged him. The stranger was there, behind.

“How wonderful you’re here, at last!” she exclaimed and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve been waiting here and thought you’d never come.”

His confusion melted into hearty laughter. How she loved him for that sense of humour!

She took his arm and pulled him along.

“By god,” he said, “if you’re the press, too, I’ll shoot myself!”

No, no shooting today, please, a voice screamed in her mind.

“Have you really been waiting for me so long?” he asked with playful irony.

“Oh, not really, just eighteen years,” she replied.

A faint shadow went over his eyes for a second, and she thought she could see some acknowledgement in there.

“Come with me,” she said.

“So soon?”

“Yes, please, as soon as can be.”

He chuckled.

“You got me wrong. I meant, your generation is different.”

She’d got him all right, but time was running short.

“Please, come along. How can I explain?” She despaired for a moment. The stranger behind might be able to hear. She looked into John’s eyes and felt their steel giving her strength. “How can I explain? Forget what I said last night. It wasn’t my fault, believe me. But what else was I to say with Allen being there? I wished I could have made you understand, signalled you some way something like it’s all just an act, but Allen kept watching us and you know he’s a son of a bitch!”

Their eyes glistened in complicity, and she pulled him along, out of the park, on to the street. He followed. She called a taxi and off they went.

***

“And now?” John asked.

They were standing in a B&B room she had booked beforehand.

“And now — we wait.”

She looked out the window. The chestnut trees were in blossom, and the lawn was sprinkled with wild daffodils and irises.

“Wow. Unbelievable,” John said. “All this James Bond action — in a moment I’m going to feel like a kidnapped victim.”

No. John must never be a victim.

“Make yourself comfortable. We need to wait for a few hours.”

“Wait for what? Look, do I get permission to feel totally stupid here?” His eyes pierced through her, peeling her off like a chestnut of its burr. “I got it that there was a wicked Allen watching us earlier, but now I’m all in the dark.”

“Why?” she asked, at a loss for words.

“Why? I’m taking a stroll when a young woman I don’t know gives me a big hug, kisses me, tells me she’s been waiting for me and pulls me along. I tell her that this young generation has evolved quite a lot, but she won’t listen and tells me a story instead about a son-of-a-bitch-Allen. We get into a taxi, she pushes me into a B&B, and, crazy!, she hasn’t kidnapped me because she was in love with me, no, but god knows what for! And now she’s so friendly telling me to make myself comfortable for the next few hours?”

“I’m in love with you.”

He laughed. She laughed along.

“How very romantic. But I need to be somewhere else at five thirty.”

“It’s very likely you won’t be.”

The hours dragged on.

She kept looking out the window feverishly watching in case the wicked Allen might be lurking around the garden.

John sat on the floor, brooding. Turning hypotheses around, but believing her that there was some vital stake involved. Something was going on. Was she a crazy fan? Was it a bet? But she wouldn’t be fretting so much. So anxious to keep him away from the window or from the door.

At some point, to kill the tense quiet, they started talking. Memories, passions, miracles.

“Tell me something: who are you?”

“My name’s Diane.”

“Anything else you’d like to share, Diane? Like, why am I here?”

“I can’t answer that. Not now.”

“When?”

“At midnight.”

“Is it a spell?”

“You might call it that, too.”

“How else might you call it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Try.”

“Maybe — time. Or love. No idea.”

“A spell, time, and love. Whose love? For what, or for whom?”

“A broader concept.”

“And if it’s a broader concept, what’s making you so anxious?”

“The time. Or maybe all three of them. Or their reverse. Oh, no idea, let’s stop talking about it, please!”

“What should we talk about, then?”

“Mmm — miracles.”

“— ?”

“Let’s take one: music.”

Their half whispered words blended in the dusk. She saw his words dancing in the room, become real, while time was being filtered through a sieve, the time that she was taking apart, but which was so powerful that it could turn on them for revenge any moment.

It got dark outside, almost too soon, as if time was running short. It was eight.

“Time’s flying like crazy,” he said. “Are you waiting for something to happen?”

“No. No, on the contrary.”

“On the contrary?”

“Yes. If it happened, then everything was in vain. And I’d go nuts.”

“What about me?”

“You…”

She wouldn’t think of it.

He stood up and came behind her, at the window.

“It’s got dark so quick,” he whispered.

What if the wicked Allen was hiding out there?

“Get away from here,” she pushed him aside in panic.

They sat down on the settee, but then she stood up again, rushed to the window and drew the curtains.

“I have a slight feeling I might be thankful to you for something at midnight when you tell me what this was all about.”

“No need for thankfulness, John. Just — live on.”

He sighed.

“You know, I was raised by an aunt, Mimi. She’s in all my childhood memories. An unusual woman. Her life is still very much about me, almost as if she lived in the past, somehow.”

“And she contaminates the others, too.”

“What? You know her?”

“She’s my neighbour.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No. That’s where I come from. My childhood is also full of the memories of her house, and her stories about you.”

“Who are you, Diane, and how come you’re so close?”

“I’m one of the kids in that neighbourhood, who Mimi grew fond of, and so she’d spend hours talking to me about her kid called John.”

“That’s unbelievable. Did she send you over?”

“Not directly, no.”

“God, she never talked to me about you, I wish she had.”

Diane laughed.

“She couldn’t have told you about me.”

“Why?”

“That’s part of the midnight mystery.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll wait. But tomorrow, when all this is over, I’m going back with you. I wonder if she still has those roses.”

Tomorrow! What meaning would this word have? She had no idea if she’d be able to find the way back home. But that didn’t matter now.

She checked her watch. It was eleven thirty. Time suddenly seemed to come to a halt. She decided to keep her eyes on the watch, watching those stubborn seconds crawling on their way, hoping she’d nudge them faster over the rim. When all this was over, they would laugh at this anxiety. Or maybe they wouldn’t?

And then, suddenly, the wait was over. Time was over and broke to millions of pieces.

Then, there was just the quiet.

John looked up at her, as she was standing like a shadow in front of him. Was it her face, or Mimi’s? Was he a kid again? Was he back to some state he’d lost over the years?

“Diane?” he whispered.

“It’s over, John. You’re safe.”

She let herself fall on her knees, holding her head in her hands. It was another day, and John was alive, defying the fate.

If you think this is a teenager’s fairy tale (without fairies), you’re right. The original version of this story I wrote with sixteen. There was a movie on in the cinemas, Somewhere in Time, starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve. Two lovers divided by decades. A man falling in love with a portrait, going back in time to meet the real woman. I watched the film several times, spellbound, until I created my own.

I was like the man: I fell in love with a voice and went back in time, in my fantasy, to keep it alive. I desperately wanted a world where Lennon might carry on singing. No, more: carry on living and loving.

Time is the invisible hero, and the fierce enemy in this story. The implacable bulldozer going one way only.

Since I was sixteen, however, I have learned that time is in physics more than a linear parameter. Later, I learned that I could leap back in time for a flash of a second, for example when smelling the fragrance of lime tree blossom. I noticed that I no longer feel, as when I was thirty, or forty, that time is running out and I need to hurry up. As I get older, time and myself are getting gentler to each other. I discover pockets in its fabric. I can fold it and be the Zoe of 2024 and that of 1985 at once.

This silly story, a sixteen-year-old’s fairy tale without fairies (but with John Lennon), is an invitation to think of your own relationship with time.

And to ask yourself whether this relationship has changed over — yes, over time.