Is it to know love and appreciate what I had versus what I have?
Or is it some unknown event that will alter everything I thought I understood?
When Mama died, I learned that a person who doesn’t move within a set frame of time, won’t accomplish the impossible. Papa believed that all unpredictable events could be prevented if they followed proper time. Then when Papa died, my heart told me that time had no relevance. His life was over because it was the end, and nothing could have changed that.And Stefan, he devoutly stated that time would find us because our love was something eternal, and we were the beginning and end.
Despite the internal battle to keep moving in my search for Stefan, I took Maja’s advice: “Wait in your old cottage and find your strength in patience.” It sounded like something Papa would tell me if he were here. So that’s what I’ve done.
I’ve been back here in Sanok for just over three months. Though it seems more like days since I stepped into an old worn photograph—a sliver of a memory. This isn’t the village I remember. It’s barren, quiet, and in ruins from air-raids. TheGermans are gone, and the Soviets didn’t find interest in our village, but that doesn’t change the outcome of the war.
I’ve spent every single day of the last few months questioning the meaning of time, desiring some greater answer to something I might have never understood. Wondering why Papa lived by the value of time and what about it offered him solace after Mama passed. I needed that.
Despite the intense damage to the square and many of the buildings, the library still stands, intact as if it was protected over all else. Even the door was unlocked.
Amid a village where life resembles a warped old photograph, I found books.Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Marcus Aurelius…Philosophers of time, each with a different conclusion. People don’t view time the same way. People don’t view faiths the same way. Yet, we co-exist in one world. No one can fit into one category, which means we need to understand the categories in which each person belongs.
I’ve read every available book about time, and when I closed the last cover, I knew what was meant to come next…
I close the door to the cottage and set out through the flourishing forest that masks the disarray, fragments, and debris left behind from a war of hate.
It’s still hard to walk around, knowing there are so few of us here now, but I believe the people of Sanok will come back someday. Those who survived. Those who fled home for safety.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been sweeping rubble and moving piles of brick and stone in a corner of the square, using the tattered clock tower as my north star and reminder of why I’m making the first dent in cleaning the destruction. Someone must be the first. Someone needs to begin moving the remains of war into the past where it belongs, clearing it for a future.Aristotle believes there can be no future without progressof today, which means I don’t have to sit and wait for time to find me. I can work toward finding time.
The broom isn’t where I left it yesterday. Up against the library, between the window and door. Maybe someone else began to clean after I left, but I’ve only seen people passing through the square, most avoiding the sights—avoiding the pain of what’s left.
I circle the square, questioning if I moved the broom and forgot, but stop where the clock tower casts a shadow over me, blocking the sun with its narrow shape. The clock hasn’t moved from two-fifteen since I’ve been back. Time here is as still as the village. The brick on the side of the tower was blown off, leaving nothing more than the interior walls intact. Even the village hall is full of rubble, the windows blown in, doors gone.All those memories I had—the ones I swore were tainted with grief and heartache from Mama’s loss, were beautiful compared to this destruction.
When I first decided to start clearing the square, I pulled some charred bricks away from the clock tower’s entrance and began clearing a path toward the center stairwell—the spine of this building, but stopped when I reached the stairs.
A cold sweat. Racing heart. Pain in my stomach…
I was afraid of the mess I’d find upstairs. Afraid to face the space I lived in—afraid to find all those memories I had with Papa, gone.So, I walked away. Left the clock tower in its state of despair. Turned my back to it and started sweeping the opposite corner of the square instead.
But with the tower’s shadow claiming me now, I can’t look away.
I close my eyes, recalling the first time I brought Stefan up here, excited and nervous, acting as if I didn’t care about him one bit when spending that time with him was all I could think about.The memory carries me up and around the spiral steps.My breath struggles as I reach the top. I never had trouble running up these stairs before. I’ve just lived a lifetime since I’ve done it last.
I take a long inhale just before climbing up the last stair. My throat goes dry. I silently plead not to find swastikas and flags, or worse. Maybe just what Papa left behind—what I couldn’t remove after he passed.
I peek through slitted eyes, finding the polished floor clear of debris. Papa’s worktable where I left it, the pieces and parts organized into piles as he’d want them.The kitchenette has a layer of grime and dust but still tidy.The only remarkable difference is the silence—no movement of the pendulum, wheels or gears.Papa would always check the escapement first. He said it’s the heart of the clock. If it fails, all parts stop.I move toward the left side of the tower but stop on my toes as the floor begins to rumble. The remnants of the glass from the windows rattle. Another plane?
No. It’s over. The war ended. No more planes.
I clutch my chest, pressing the key into my flesh.
A loudthwackfollows. Then another.
Awooshjoins, forward, then back.
Forward, then back.
A scuffle from the side moves me to the nearest beam, hiding behind it.
“At least the clock’s working again.”
I grab the beam, digging my fingernails into the wood and poke my head around the side, eyes wide, jaw agape.
For a moment, my mind refuses to believe what I could so easily imagine. The world sways around me as I reach out, frightened my fingers will pass through him like a breath of smoke.
