When Time met Love everything stopped. In that instant, he wanted nothing more than to be near her. She was his one focus, not even his constant, rhythmic work mattered.
She met his gaze with a playful smile, but he was lost in her eyes. Together they shared a longing look.
Oh no! This moment is too big, I’ve let it go on too long, Time thought. He pulled his watch from his pocket and checked. This can’t be right. I don’t understand. This moment feels huge, it cannot be just an ordinary second.
Love was equally perplexed. She had always only known the spaces that were comfortable. The heart-rooms, she called them. This is too much. She worried, A single heartbeat that carries the echo of all that preceded it and the promises of the future. What if I can’t fill this heart?
Time reached out his hand. “What if I don’t let this moment pass?” he asked.
Love took his hand and pulled him closer. She closed her eyes in contemplation, and when she reopened them, any trace of doubt was gone. “I don’t want this moment to pass, but it will.” She said, “You cannot stop it. Our future awaits.”
Time saw the truth in her words, but he also knew he couldn’t go on without her. “And for that future to be happy, you must fill every part of it.” He replied.
Her calmness belied the whirlwind — the rush of expanding emotion — she felt. “Then we will each hold on to this instant,” she said.
Her eyes were all he saw as she lifted his hand to her lips. With a gentle kiss she bade him, “Etch this heartbeat onto your soul.”
“I will,” he swore. “Remember the fullness of this moment.”
“I will,” she promised.
The universe changed in that instant. Every second thereafter would hold the potential to be something more than just a tick of a clock. A moment gained the possibility to become a forever memory and a single heartbeat could, from then onwards, expand to hold everything that matters.
So, you see, that’s what happened when Time met Love.