Agalon at the Threshold

There wasn’t a room there when Agalon woke up.
When he opened his eyes, surrounded by darkness and time,
he had to build the antechamber by himself
with his own two hands
out of the shards of his own past.

There was his wedding to his wife;
There, his earliest memory of his father showing him the Tree;|
the doorway was the time he had watched the Dragons with envy;
and there, tucked away in a corner in the back,
that was his brother pushing him into the Darkness.

It was a long time before the Gatherer came for him.
“Who are you?” she asked without words.
“I was banished here,” said the man at the Threshold,
and he explained himself. “Do you know the way back?
I want to return to my family. Can you help me?”
“Back?” the Gatherer did not understand. “Help?”

The shards were still all around them,
pieces of a broken past
pieces of a puzzle.
“I may be able to bring you back,” said Nesnas.
“But first you must help me.”
“Anything,” said the newcomer.
“You must help me gather all the shards,” she said.
“Gather them all up, every one.
We must fit them together.”

And Agalon looked around him.
He looked at the shards of time and saw they were still falling.
He saw the Gatherer meticulously piece together
a single moment
of a single day
in the ocean of eternity.

“And should others come,” said Nesnas,
“while we’re here working,
do greet them in this nice little house.
Put them to work, too. We will need the assistance.”