Random Story, Seeking Second Chances

Pay no attention to this, unless you want to take the time to read it.  It is just something from 'Braid' that I wanted to keep.

Chapter 1  

At a cafe on a bright plaza, most customers sit back, feeling the warmth of  the sun, enjoying their cold drinks. But not Tim - he barely notices the sun,  

doesn't really taste his coffee. For him this corner affords a good view of the  city, and in the teetering of the passers-by, in the arc of a shop-girl's 

hand  as she displays tea to an interested gentleman, Tim hopes to see clues.  

That night at the cinema, fictitious adventurers lunge implausibly across the  screen. The audience here is mixed. 

Some are patrons of the cafe, now sitting  excitedly in the plush chairs, eager for another new flavor, for distraction  from the boredom of their 

easy lives. Other seats hold fisherman and farm  workers, hoping to forget their toils and rest their hands.  Tim is here too, but he is scrutinizing 

the gloss on the lips on the screen,  measuring the angle of the plume of a distant helicopter crash. He thinks he  discerns a message, when the cinema

 closes and most of the audience strolls  down the plaza to the south, Tim goes north.  People like Tim seem to live oppositely from the other residents

 of the city.  Tide and riptide, flowing against each other.  Tim wants, like nothing else, to find the Princess, to know her at last. For Tim this would

 be momentous, sparking an intense light that embraces the world, a light that reveals the secrets long kept from us, that illuminates - or  materializes! -

 a final palace where we can exist in peace.  But how would this be perceived by the other residents of the city, in the  world that flows contrariwise? 

The light would be intense and warm at the  beginning, but then flicker down to nothing, taking the castle with it; it  would be like burning down the 

place we've always called home, where we played  so innocently as children. Destroying all hope of safety, forever.    

Chapter 2: Time and Forgiveness  

Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a  horrible and evil monster. This happened because Tim made a mistake.  

Not just one. He made many mistakes during the time they spent together, all  those years ago. Memories of their relationship have become muddled, 

replaced  wholesale, but one remains clear: the princess turning sharply away, her braid  lashing at him with contempt.  

He knows she tried to be forgiving, but who can just shrug away a guilty lie, a stab in the back? Such a mistake will change a relationship irreversibly,  

even if we have learned from the mistake and would never repeat it. The  princess's eyes grew narrower. She became more distant. 

Our world, with its rules of causality, has trained us to be miserly with forgiveness. By forgiving them too readily, we can be badly hurt. 

But if we've learned from a mistake and became better for it, shouldn't we be rewarded for  the learning, rather than punished for the mistake?"  

"What if our world worked differently? Suppose we could tell her: 'I didn't  mean what I just said,' and she would say: 'It's okay, I understand,' and she  would not turn away, 

and life would really proceed as though we had never said  that thing? We could remove the damage but still be wiser for the experience." 

 "Tim and the Princess lounge in the castle garden, laughing together, giving  names to the colorful birds. Their mistakes are hidden from each other,

 tucked  away between the folds of time, safe.  

Chapter 3: Time and Mystery

All those years ago, Time had left the Princess behind. 

He had kissed her on  the neck, picked up his travel bag, and walked out the door. He regrets this, to a degree. Now he's journeying to find her again, 

to show her knows how sad it was, but also to tell her how good it was.  For a long time, he thought they had been cultivating the perfect  relationship. 

He had been fiercely protective, reversing all his mistakes so  they would not touch her. Likewise, keeping a tight rein on her own mistakes, 

she always pleased him.  

But to be fully couched within the comfort of a friend is a mode of existence  with severe implications. 

To please you perfectly, she must understand you  perfectly. Thus you cannot defy her expectations or escape her reach. 

Her benevolence has circumscribed you, and your life's achievements will not reach  beyond the map she has drawn."   "Tim needed to 

be non-manipulable. He needed a hope of transcendence. He  needed, sometimes, to be immune to the Princess's caring touch.  

Off in the distance, Tim saw a castle where the flags flutter even when the  wind has expired, and the bread in the kitchen is always warm. 

A little bit of  magic.

    "Chapter 4: Time and Place"  

Visiting his home for a holiday meal, Tim felt as though he had regressed to  those long-ago years when he lived under 

their roof, oppressed by their  insistence on upholding strange values which, to him, were meaningless. Back then, bickering would erupt over drops of 

gravy spilt onto the tablecloth."  "Escaping, Tim walked in the cool air toward the university he'd attended after  moving out of his parent's home. 

As he distanced himself from that troubling  house, he felt the embarrassment of childhood fading into the past. But now he  stepped into all the 

insecurities he'd felt at the university, all the panic of  walking a social tightrope."  "Tim only felt relieved after the whole visit was over, 

sitting back home in  the present, steeped in contrast he saw how he'd improved so much from those  old days. This improvement, day by day, 

takes him ever-closer to finding the  Princess. If she exists - she must! - she will transform him, and everyone.  He felt on his trip that every place

 stirs up an emotion, and every emotion  invokes a memory: a time and location. So couldn't he find the Princess now, tonight, just by wandering 

from place to place and noticing how he feels?  A trail of feelings, of awe and inspiration, should lead him to that castle in  the future her arms 

enclosing him, her scent fills him with excitement, creates  a moment so strong he can remember it in the past.  Immediately Tim walked out his

 door, the next morning, toward whatever the new day held. He felt something like optimism.  

Chapter 5: Time and Decision

She never understood the impulses that drove him, never quite felt the  intensity that, over time, chiseled lines into 

his face. She never quite felt  close enough to him - but he held her as though she were, whispered into her  ear words that only a soul mate should receive.

 Over the remnants of dinner, they both knew the time had come.  He would have  said: 'I have to go find the Princess,' but he didn't need to. Giving a final kiss, hoisting a travel bag to his shoulder, he walked out the door.  Through  all the nights that followed, she still loved him as though he stayed, to  

comfort her and protect her, Princess be damned.  

Chapter 6: Hesitance

Perhaps in a perfect world, the ring would be a symbol of happiness. 

It's a  sign of ceaselessness devotion: even if he will never find the Princess, he will always be trying. He still will wear the ring.  But the thing makes

 its presence known. It shines out to others like a beacon  of warning. It makes people slow to approach. Suspicion, distrust. Interactions are torpedoed

 before Tim can open his mouth."  "In time he learns to deal with the others carefully. He matches their hesitant  pace, tracing a soft path through their

 defenses. But this exhausts him, and it  only works to a limited degree. It doesn't get him what he needs.  Tim begins to hide the ring in his pocket.

 But he can hardly bear it - too long tucked away, that part of him might suffocate.  

Epilogue  

The boy called for the girl to follow him, and he took her hand. He would  protect her; they would make their way through this oppressive castle, 

fighting  off the creatures made of smoke and doubt, escaping to a life of freedom. The  boy wanted to protect the girl. He held her hand, or put his 

arm around her  shoulders in a walking embrace, to help her feel supported and close to him  amid the impersonal throngs of Manhattan. They turned 

and made their way toward the Canal St. subway station, and he picked a path through the jostling crowd.  He worked his ruler and his compass. He

 inferred. He deduced. He scrutinized  the fall of an apple, the twisting of metal orbs hanging from a thread. He was  searching for the Princess, and 

he would not stop until he found her, for he  was hungry. He cut rats into pieces to examine their brains, implanted tungsten  posts into the skulls of

 water-starved monkeys.  He scrutinized the fall of an apple, the twisting of metal orbs hanging from a  thread. Through these clues he would find the 

Princess, see her face. After an especially fervent night of tinkering, he kneeled behind a bunker in the  desert; he held a piece of welder's glass up to

 his eyes and waited.  On that moment hung eternity. Time stood still. Space contracted to a  pinpoint. It was as though the earth had opened and 

the skies split. One felt  as though he had been privileged to witness the Birth of the World... Someone near him said: 'It worked.'

"Someone else said: 'Now we are all sons of bitches.'" 

The candy store. Everything he wanted was on the opposite side of that pane of  glass. The store was decorated in bright colors, and the scents wafting

 out  drove him crazy. He tried to rush for the door, or just get closer to the  glass, but he couldn't. She held him back with great strength. Why 

would she  hold him back? How might he break free of her grasp? He considered violence.  He cannot say he has understood all of this. Possibly he's 

more confused now than ever. But all these moments he's contemplated - something has occurred.  The moments feel substantial in his mind, 

like stones. Kneeling, reaching down  toward the closest one, running his hand across it, he finds it smooth, and  slightly cold.  He tests the stone's 

weight; he finds he can lift in, and the others too. He can fit them together to create a foundation, an embankment, a castle.  To build a castle 

of appropriate size, he will need a great many stones. But what he's got now, feels like an acceptable start...  

The End