Up On A Time

“What does ‘Once upon a time…’ mean anyway,” she muttered to herself and her then still supportive best friend who got a chuckle out of it.

‘Think it out before you’re skeptical of something’ the almost annoyingly soft voice of her least hated teacher chimed in Luz’ head. Upon, on a time, on time means punctual, at a certain time, once, one time, I say one time when I’m telling a story. One time doesn’t sound as good as once upon a time, fairytales are less mundane than a family trip, one time, I was with my family…’ 

“Lucia, Lucy,” the teacher interrupted her daydreaming. 

“Please read for us, you know where we are right?”

Luckily she did. Lu had perfected her ability to tune back in when her attention was divided by moving her finger along when she heard others reading and picking up on the last few words of each person’s turn speaking she could usually triangulate on where in the reading the class had left off. On days she couldn’t, Luz sheepishly said she ‘zoned out’ apologized and read out loud happily. She loved reading, and she liked the sound of her voice when she read aloud.

Fast forward to her 33rd year of life, Lucy is reading out loud to herself and to an imaginary unborn child she created in the belly of someone she had had a tragically fairytale-esque experience with. She had catapulted herself into a world of her own design where at least her life was so tragic that any being watching her read out loud to her unborn child and estranged girlfriend would record the story for posterity.

Here’s a story she concocted out of a delusion that one of her favorite authors had been inspired by her and a band mate’s travails in a foreign land; a story inspired by a fantastical version of her own life, two times removed from reality if we concede that perhaps one of her favorite authors had actually been aware of a photo of the two traveling musicians that in the age of the information superhighway could have become public and popularized.

The following is what is left of the writings of a now disheveled mind that once sat in class at a young age working through the etymology of phrases before she knew the term etymology. After all, all things are ephemeral, and it is arrogance to strive to be remembered, so she deleted most of her writings and to this day, this story of stories is all we have. 

Once, a long time ago but not so long ago compared to forever, in a specific place, far away but not so far compared to infinity, something happened worth talking about.