The Persistence of Memory

His love, outside of time, beyond the illusion of forever, was immemorial as it was eternal.

Long before the human genome had been discovered and deciphered in cold, impersonal laboratories, his epigenetics had been warmly at work, laying down inheritable sentiments for his progeny. He built up a latticework of devotion to her where natural selection had no relevance.

His love would persist through the ages. It always had, hadn't it? Some certainties persist beyond memory.

His was just a trick with amino acids, bonding junk DNA to the otherwise silent portions of his genetic helices. But there she straddled, fresh and alive; lovely and kind; and generously giving.

And inheritable.

Alas, he never taught her how to do likewise. He couldn't. It was a process so private and inherently esoteric that he didn't quite understand it himself. How could he translate such mindful machinations into words of instruction? He might just as easily deconstruct love, grief, or loneliness, all of which ensued upon her death.

But love and grief and loneliness are constructs of a genetically derived mindfulness, apart from his epigenetic love letter, and ne'er the twain would meet: his completeness by her was immune to the instructions of mere proteins or hormones.

Each time he visited her grave, the tighter his epigenetic bonds became. They stood out--little bombs easily packaged for sorties to his offspring to come.

Each time he visited her grave, he would sink to his knees, crying, "I love you eternally. My love is still here now, and will so remain, until it becomes the stuff of stars themselves!"

Hundreds of years later, great-great-great-grandchildren, now unrecognizable to each other on their family tree, visit her grave driven via a powerful, mysterious compulsion. Chance had summated perfectly: three strangers--two men and a boy--know they must be there but don't know why.

Prudence Planchard

My Forever Love

May 25, 1757 — September 5, 1785

The older man said, "I love you forever."

The younger man, added, "My love is still here now..."

And the boy added, in a sentiment well beyond his years, "...and will so remain until becoming the stuff of stars themselves."

They departed, but would certainly, in love, cross paths again.