Fragments of Eternity

The rider fished backward for lost moments. From the sea he pulled a birthday candle, his mother’s laugh and the afternoon before a friend moved away. He packed each fragment into the hippopotamus’s saddle until the animal could barely swim. Then the line caught the one moment he wanted most: a final goodbye he had been too angry to hear.

It emerged alive, trembling like a silver fish. ‘Keep it,’ he begged. The hippo began to sink. The rider understood that preserving the moment would kill its movement.

He kissed it and opened his hands. As it returned to the water, the forgotten goodbye became clear: ‘Go on living.’ He did. The fragments were still part of him, but no longer his cargo.