Timeless Matters

And all of a sudden, everything seemed small. Things, words, people—the illusion of living. The silence remained, a quiet observer, ever-present and eternal.

There were people walking back and forth, navigating the aisles of the old building. It felt as though I had entered another time zone altogether. The air carried a peculiar weight, one that blurred the lines between the tangible and the surreal. I refused the subtle call within me to check whether I was awake. To do so seemed excessive, almost insulting to my own ability to distinguish between dream and reality. Instead, I decided to test the environment in my own way.

I sat down on one of the benches, its wood worn smooth by the touch of countless hands and the passage of years. Nearby, an elderly woman sat quietly. Her green eyes, striking and vibrant, caught my attention immediately. They glimmered like jewels in a ring, as if their youthful clarity defied the weathered frame of her body.

Determined to root myself in the moment, I initiated a conversation with her.

“Hello,” I said, leaning slightly forward, my curiosity piqued. “Have you been coming here for a long time?”

She turned her gaze to me, her eyes seeming to hold decades of untold stories. “Oh, yes,” she replied with a faint smile. “For as long as I can remember.”

The phrase lingered in the air, resonating deeply within me. It felt timeless, almost mythic, as if it carried a weight far greater than the moment itself.

“It must be a special place for you,” I said, my voice gentle yet probing.

“Yes,” she nodded, her expression softening. “This building has always been a refuge. My grandparents used to bring me here as a child. We would sit on this very bench, watching the world pass us by.”

A flicker of doubt crept into my mind. This couldn’t possibly be real. The bench, the woman, the very fabric of the scene felt incongruous with my life in 2025. To test my suspicion, I asked another question.

“You sound different from the people I usually speak to around here. What is your origin?”

Her gaze deepened, as if she were peering through layers of memory. “My parents were Hungarian Gypsies,” she said. “We spoke many languages at home. My mother used to say that words are the colors we paint our lives with.”

I paused, letting her words settle. There was a melodic quality to her voice, a rhythm that seemed to transcend time. For a moment, the boundaries of my reality felt porous, as if the past and present were intertwining before my eyes.

“Do you still speak those languages?” I ventured, eager to learn more about her.

“Yes,” she said, her smile returning. “Though now, they feel more like whispers of a world that’s grown quieter.”

The room seemed to shift subtly, as if the air itself were acknowledging the profundity of her words. I couldn’t tell if I was conversing with a relic of history, a projection of my subconscious, or something altogether beyond explanation. But in that moment, it didn’t matter. The illusion of living—the things, the words, the people—had all faded into the background. Only the silence and this strange, poignant connection remained.

“It’s strange,” I said, almost to myself, “but this place feels familiar. I think I’ve been here before.”

The woman’s eyes sparkled with a knowing glint. “Perhaps you have,” she said, her tone enigmatic. “Some places stay with us even when we’ve forgotten them.”

Her words struck a chord deep within me. I looked around, trying to anchor myself in the details of the space. The arched windows, the faint scent of aged wood, the faint murmur of conversations—it all seemed to echo from a distant past.

“What would you say,” I asked, “if I told you I wasn’t sure if this is real?”

She tilted her head slightly, her expression soft yet unreadable. “Reality is a funny thing,” she said. “Sometimes it’s not about where you are, but what you carry with you.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but the words dissolved before they could form. The woman’s figure seemed to blur, and the edges of the room began to waver like ripples on a pond. Panic surged for a moment, but then a calm washed over me—a deep, inexplicable calm.

I blinked, and I was awake. The hum of the world around me was sharp and clear. I was lying in my bed, sunlight streaming through the window. Yet the memory of that conversation lingered, vivid and unshakable. I’d been to that place before, I was certain of it. But where? And who was she?

As I sat there, trying to piece together the fragments of the dream, one thought remained: it had been one of the most fascinating conversations of my life… or wait, was it? What even qualifies as the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had?

Later that day, I got in my car and drove to check out a new bakery that had just opened down the street. The building was old, but its charm had been transformed into something warm and inviting. Inside, I took a seat at one of the tables designed to look vintage, blending seamlessly with the building’s history.

A waitress approached to take my order. As I glanced up from the menu, my breath caught. Her eyes—those glowing green eyes. They were unmistakable, identical to the ones I had seen in my dream. She was younger, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was the same woman. My heart pounded as I lingered, frozen.

I wanted to speak, to tell her that I had just met her… thirty years later, an hour ago. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I sat in stunned silence, caught between two worlds, wondering if the line between dream and reality had ever truly existed at all.