Year 334

April

Hannah promised to meet Jonathon beneath the oldest oak on The Island of La Grande Jatte, so he found the tallest tree, spread out a blanket, removed his shoes, and waited.

It was ninety years ago that they parted.

Ninety years used to be a lifetime, he thought.

The grass was cool between his toes. He raised his arm, relaxed his muscles, then laughed when gravity jerked it back to the blanket. He breathed in the potpourri of spring blossoms and rain. Real smells, he thought, then closed his eyes to focus his senses. There was a mechanical drone from the towers in the east. Above his head, leaves brushed against each other like scraps of paper. The device on his arm created a rhythmic tick tick tick, and he knew they would finally share the same plane of time.

Jon wondered if it would storm. He wondered if rain felt the same here as it did there. He wondered if it would be awkward when Hannah arrived; if they would fall into their old rapport or find themselves scrambling to fill uncomfortable gaps. Would they hug? Would they kiss?

Would they use the word "love?"

When he opened his eyes she was there, beautiful, framed by the river and painted with light from the morning sun. Her shoulders carried thin straps of a purple dress. Her body was trapped at twenty-three. "Hey there, JonJon."

He grinned at the nickname. "Is it really you?" (A cliché, but he had to be sure.)

Hannah glanced down, patted her waist, chest, and cheeks, then shrugged. "I think so." She smiled again and joined him on the blanket. He remembered the times when her hair was black, blond, red, or midnight blue. Today it was as brown as the trunk of their tree.

The couple shared a picnic: white wine, strawberries, French baguettes with turkey, green apples, and Brie. Their usual rapport returned, slowly at first because the words felt like dust in their mouths. "'Dust' is the only way to describe it," she said, crinkling her nose.

When lunch was over, she brushed crumbs from her lap, opened a journal, and sketched details from the island with a charcoal stick: the oak, the bench, the towers... him. Despite her lavish drawings, she crumpled every page and tossed them aside. "It's not right."

"It never was," Jon replied, then touched the inside of her thigh.

The rain arrived an hour later and smothered the morning with a humid, grey blanket. The couple didn't care. They huddled beneath the tree, catching droplets on their tongues and kissing to keep warm.

Evening came sooner than Jon expected and they marveled at the reliable routine of the here-and-now.

Hannah's shoulder blades pressed against him. She pulled his arm around hers. "Do you ever think about nothingness?" she asked.

"I don't think so."

She squeezed his hand and snuggled deeper. "Try."

"Now?"

"Close your eyes."

"Okay."

"Are they closed?" She turned in his arms to make sure.

"They're closed!"

"Now imagine a place without life... without time or space or thoughts..."

He nodded.

"A place without planets or stars..."

He nodded again.

Hannah's voice became a whisper. "No people. No God. Not even blackness." She paused. "Do you feel anything?"

"I feel you."

She sighed. "It works better when everything's quiet."

"What's supposed to happen?"

"When I think about it for long enough, I feel it. It's like my mind can't fathom the concept of nothingness, and for a split second..." Her voice fell away and she abandoned the thought. "Then my brain reminds me where I am."

"You want that feeling tonight?"

She shook her head. "No. Tonight is nice."

An hour later, the device on Jon's wrist told him their time together was almost over. He squeezed Hannah tighter and ran his finger along the strap of her purple dress. In an age of endless memories, he used every ounce of his concentration—every molecule in his fingertip—to record the feeling of the tiny hairs on the woman's bare back.

Relationships would ebb and flow like a lackadaisical tide—life would try to divert Jon's attention with the promise of everything—but it wouldn't matter. He would remember this day forever.