We sit together in one of those quaint European cafés that I’ve seen in a thousand movies.

He sits across from me, casually stirring his cup of coffee.

I glance over his shoulder at the door.

We are waiting for someone to join us.

He smiles, “She won’t come by yet.” 1/

I focus on his features. He looks strangely familiar, yet different.

I’m trying to figure out why, when he speaks, “It’s because I’m younger. Much younger, doc. You’ll meet me fifty years from now.”

I nod, as if that makes any sense. He smiles, amused at my confusion. 2/

Slowly I’m realizing that this is a different era than mine.

Looking around, I don’t see any cell phones. Everyone is talking to each other. I can’t see a TV, or hear any traffic.

He smiles, “Peaceful, isn’t it? I was vacationing here when I met her.”

A woman enters. 3/

He gets up to greet her, and I stand up too. She laughs with delight to see him, and the smile lights up her whole face.

She’s beautiful, in her genuine happiness.

He introduces me as she joins us at our table. He’s so charismatic with her, they have such easy chemistry. 4/

As we all sit together, the two of them side by side, and me across from them, I understand why I’m here.

He looks at me, and his smile is tinged with melancholy, “You see why now?”

I nod. “This was the happiest moment, right here. The moment you wanted to come back to.” 5/

He nods, “This is the moment that changed everything for me. I had met her the night before, only briefly. This is when we talked for hours. We get chased out of this restaurant eventually. Six months later, we get married.”

I listen to him, and smile, understanding. 6/

I will never hear his voice, like I do now. The first time I will meet him, fifty years from now, he will already be intubated.

I will never see his wife, like I do now. I will only ever hear her voice on the phone, and listen to her weep.

These dreams are only imaginings. 7/

I’m standing on a shore. An endless beach, with white sand that’s soft between my toes.

The water is the deepest blue, stretching into an infinite horizon.

I’m not alone. There’s someone else on this beach.

She walks alone, the breeze blowing her long hair back. 8/

I walk behind her. I already know this is a dream. She leaves no footprints.

I know why. It’s because she never looked back.

She never saw her footprints, so why would she remember them?

And yet, all we ever know of some people are the footprints they leave behind. 9/

As I catch up to her, she smiles. She doesn’t look at me. Her gaze is fixed on a small bluff up ahead.

“Why here?” I ask the question, and then immediately regret it.

She looks to me with an expression of loss so deep that it makes me ache inside.

“Because of my family.” 10/

“They’re on the other side of that bluff, waiting. We’re gonna get into the car and drive home. A drunk driver is going to run a red light and hit us.”

I nod, taking a deep breath. “Why would you choose here?”

Her voice is quiet.

“It’s the last time we’ll be together.” 11/

“I’m not going to know you at all, am I?” I ask.

“No doc, by the time you see me, I’ll already be coding. But you try, you really do. Everyone does.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t bring you here to accuse you.”

“Then why?” I ask.

She smiles sadly, “To show you.” 12/

I stand beside her, and we both look out to the ocean. The only sound is the breaking of the waves against the infinite shore.

I breathe in the scent of the sea, “It’s beautiful.”

She nods, “Yes, it was. It really was.”

She falls silent, and I wish I could’ve helped her. 13/

“Hey, these dreams are getting vivid, aren’t they?”

I’m sitting across from an old man. We are in a park, on opposite sides of a chess board on a small table. The old man gestures, “Your move, kid.”

I look at the board, and slide a pawn forward.

The old man grins. 14/

I find myself staring at the chess pieces.

Lined up. Waiting to be moved. Rigidly following the rules. Being pushed forwards, pulled back. Taking other pieces, sacrificing themselves.

The old man smiles, then nods, “Feel like a chess piece lately? Pawn? Or royalty?” 15/

“I’m tired,” I say.

“No kidding!” The old man laughs. “Having these dreams where you give people a past they never had, just to feel a connection to something that was never real.”

“I’m tired of seeing people so sick, so incapacitated, that all they seem to be is data.” 16/

The old man contemplates this, as he moves his knight forward.

“Hmm... three things, kiddo. One, you need to stop trying to comprehend what people are losing. Life is irreplaceable. You can’t even begin to understand the depths of all that loss. It will overwhelm you.” 17/

I look at the old man as he speaks, now he seems strangely familiar.

He carries on, “Two, stop seeking forgiveness. We all need forgiveness at some point. Start with forgiving yourself.”

I nod, “Ok, what about the third thing?”

He grins, “Three. Checkmate.”

Dammit. 18/

“Okay doc, time to wake up. There are no answers here.”

I nod, then finally ask him, “You’re me, aren’t you? From the future or something?”

The old man laughs. “There’s no future, and no past. Just footprints in the sand, and breaking waves on the shore.”

I awaken.