I open my eyes and find myself in a thick forest. The envelope of the dark blue night is filled with screaming silences. The silence of the forest makes me uncomfortable. I can see the leaves rumbling but not hear them; the screeching of birds doesn’t reach my ears. What am I here for? The first thing I hear is the sound of approaching footsteps. A black shadowy figure seems to be moving around me in circles. The silhouette gives way to a stranger's face which surprisingly seems familiar. Have I seen her before? I feel an overflowing emotion of love for her that makes my feet run and embrace her. But I am taken aback by the way she looks. She’s wearing torn clothes and adorns battle scars like jewelry. She gives me a triumphant smile even in this precarious state. She whispers, ‘I won’. Her declaration of victory felt so personal as if it was mine. I know who she is. She is my future self with all the realized potential. Is all this madness of my mundane reality leading me to her? But why is she wounded? Can anybody ever escape the sharp-edged knife of change tossed by the hands of time?

My feeling of love is overpowered by an incomprehensible fear. I fear the truth that she has come to tell me; the truth I am too weak to accept. I have carried stone-filled bags of pain for too long now to replace them with bags of courage filled with feathers. What would I even be without the pain; only a scarred soul with torn clothes? I ran for my impoverished life lest she would catch me. But she doesn’t follow me. She’s still there smiling; fading into oblivion. I could not help but think about her smile as I ran and I realized that I couldn’t leave her. But it was all too late now. She’s gone and all I see is tall trees laughing at my foolishness of running away when I had everything I wanted right in front of me. The trees are lucky, they don’t have to choose between the false comfort of stagnancy and the piercing discomfort of change that is perhaps inevitable.

These thoughts are interrupted by a wailing sound. A young child is crying somewhere near me. I saw her sitting beneath a tree waiting for me to console her. I know what I have to do and won’t commit the mistake of running away this time. I realized she only wanted me to hear all the hurt she faced and couldn’t understand why. I tell her that she will receive all the answers if she accompanies me as we go about in search of the girl who won. My future self has all the answers.

We hadn’t completed the conversation as I opened my eyes and found myself in my room. I saw the crying girl of the forest as myself in a ten-year-old photograph at my bedside table. I realized that I never needed to convince her to come with me but only to notice her presence and give her the love she had craved for a long. I wonder if I will ever meet that wounded but smiling girl again. Will I ever be able to live her reality? I wish I could lessen the scars of loss and hurt she had to go through. But that is the mark that changes over time left as they befall the self like pixie dust of growth.