Fountain of Youth (Fruk)

1

"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arriv'd so near; And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n, To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n: All is, if I have grace to use it soAs ever in my great Task-Master's eye."

It was a poem I used to read when I was in college. I forgot the poet's name, but I remember the piece's name. "How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth." It was the poem's first line, so it would be hard to forget.

Growing up, I always had this strange idea of youth and being young. In primary school, I would think. "Wow, I am going into my twelfth year, then I will be closer to the age of fifteen, then eighteen, then I will be in university, then I will be an adult...and so on..."

I had not fully grasped the concept of time, but it all seemed linear. That we as humans were on this line that did not have a past or future. We only existed, and if we chose to want more quickly, we could imagine it, and it would happen.

People say that time passes in a blink of an eye, but I believe that people who believe that concept chooses to speed it up. We can choose for it to slow down and speed up all we want because there are no rules regarding the idea of time. It was non-existent, yet it existed in our reality as something essential to life.

I see 'time' that way still.

When I married my husband, I was eager to spend the rest of our lives together. I was eager to have children and watch them grow up. It was a beautiful thing to envision.

But it happened...

I experienced all the beautiful things I looked forward to.

We spent our lives together as promised.

We watched our two sons grow up, and we gave them a good life. Then they married, started their own families, and had kids; it was lovely. Arthur and I are passed retired, and we were constantly with each other.

We did anything any pair of old people did at the age of seventy-five. We would go for walks; I would cook still...you would think after decades, he would have learned, but he didn't, and I was okay with that. We would watch movies, go to the park, and feed the birds. We would spend our days enjoying each other company.

We had to...

We were at the age where we started thinking of death. That meant that one day, sometime soon...one of us would pass first, and we needed to prepare ourselves for that reality. We have wills, our funerals paid for, and anything our kids might need to be sorted out. Now we only needed to enjoy each other till we couldn't anymore.

The sad thing about aging and time...you never realize how much you can take it for granted.

One day I was this youthful twenty-six-year-old dating this other hot twenty-three-year-old, and now the two of us have wrinkling hands and smell like cream.

I am joking about the cream part...

but really, I did take it for granted. Being able to run around with my love all day. It was hard to believe that we raised two toddlers, that made our lives a living hell.

My Arthur walks around slow as hell now. Then he gets mad at me when I bump him. I am confused; just walk faster.

I am joking again...I love his slow little walk now.

"Francis...when will you stop making me do your hair? It comes out the same," Arthur spoke. I was sitting on a chair, and he was brushing my hair back into a ponytail. "You don't like fixing my hair? I love when you do it," I spoke. He began to laugh, and I knew he was shaking his head. I knew everything about him, down to the very freckles scattered across his face.

I knew him so well; it felt like I knew him more than myself at times.

"You know..." He started. He tightened the ponytail, and I turned to look at him. His hair was still as messy, but his eyebrows grew thicker somehow. Arthur seemed to have gotten shorter and wasn't that thin kid anymore.

"I know?" I asked. I smiled at him, and he began to wipe some of the hair from my face. "I was looking through some of the magazines, and I found this beautiful park I wanted to go to; we should go," He smiled. I was still a fool in love, who would do anything he asked of me. "Yes, we can go tomorrow if you want; where is it? I will pack us lunch," I spoke.

He chuckled at me and began walking toward the sofa to sit down. "Always so fast to respond, we would need to drive there, but it is a twenty-minute drive," He spoke. Arthur may walk slowly, but he was still the better driver than me. "Okay then, as long as you drive," I laughed.

I went to sit beside him, and he put an arm around me, pulling me closer. "Of course, you would kill us if I let you drive, which would be embarrassing," He laughed.

"My love! Embarrassing how?"

"Embarrassing that I lived this long only to be taken out by your driving, that I have known about for years," He laughed. I began to pout, and I snuggled close to him. "That is not very nice," I whined. However, he continued to laugh and hold me. This was nice, as always...being with my love.