We walked without a thought to the distance or where we were going. I didn’t even think to ask Stella about what her plans where, and she did not inquire about mine either. I do not think that either of us cared. The future did not come up in conversation, and she did not act like I was anyone else other than who I was. That is, I was Elijah, her boyfriend of four years. And yet that time felt like nothing now. It was as if we were two young lovers that had just met, or had just been together for a few weeks, or a few months, or a few years. It just didn’t matter, we were together. She did not bring up the future, and neither did I.

I was not a time traveler during these moments.

The day had been warm and beautiful, without a cloud in the sky, and the evening was just as much so. With the fading of the hot summer sun, the asphalt of the city streets gave off warmth into the comforting cool of the night.

The only European city that I had been to up till this point in my life was Krakow, and that had been in 1945 with Aileen in Poland. Up till this point I had always assumed that they would be very picturesque. Pictures online and things I’d heard had always lead me to believe that they were quite nice.

My expectations were neither crushed nor dispelled - because I was paying little attention to the city or the country I was in. The old and new architecture went past without notice. Whether a street was clean or dirty didn’t matter. For all the chances at good cuisine we had, Stella and I ate at a McDonald’s for our dinner, and crossed the Rhone afterwards. Then we passed through a park, and there were various monuments in that park which I recall; but they passed by while I was watching Stella talk about her work, her plans going forward, and about our favorite things.

I felt real again. Traveling with Aileen had always felt impossible. Every moment it felt like I was going to wake up from a long sleep, and return to reality. I always wondered if I would regain my sanity, and just forget it all. Now, I had. I had woken up, and not to a psych ward, but to my perfect reality.

Onwards we journeyed. There was still no plan. It was just the two of us and the night, in one moment that passed to another.

We wandered and wandered, and at some point we were not able to walk anymore. We had walked out onto some jetty that extended out into Lake Geneva, or as others knew it the Le Leman. There were boats and the shore behind us, and in front of us was the lake and the city beyond. Towards our front, there was a fountain off to the left, and a peculiar little lighthouse off to the right. The fountain was illuminated by light, and the city behind it glowed with its own bright lights. The sight was gorgeous, and breathtaking. For once in the evening, my eyes left Stella to stare upon something else, and perhaps that was what destroyed our moment together in time. That was the point in the dream where I accidentally triggered an event which would wake me involuntarily.

“Isn’t it beautiful.” Stella said, with a look in her eyes and a tone of voice that made me cautious. This wasn’t just an observation or a question.

I nodded, then waited for her to continue. She did.

“I like old things like this city you know. Do you think that makes me a hypocrite?”

I shook my head. “No, not at all. How would it?”

“Well, I like old things, but I’m always looking for the new. Pushing ahead to the future, researching science and technology that we don’t have yet. I’m always searching for a way into the future.” she explained. Then her face fell. “A future that doesn’t matter now. Not for me.”

“Stella, what do you mean by that? What did you mean when you were talking to Aileen earlier? About her time travel, and not explaining it to me?” I asked, sighing as I did so. After saying the words, I wanted them back. I didn’t want the nightmare to return. It wasn’t a nightmare though. Aileen was real, and I had to deal with that.

“Yes and no.” she said, before motioning towards the city with one hand. “What do you think of when you think about Geneva?”

I paused, and looked out at the city again. It was still beautiful. “The Geneva convention? Clocks? Switzerland?”

She smirked, and then giggled. “Great, and you’re the religious one.”

“You mean the atheist raised Catholic.” I replied, feeling a bit strange correcting her, even if I meant it to be just counter-teasing.

“True, and that may explain why you don’t know what I’m getting at.” she replied. “See, this city was the home of a man named John Calvin for many years. He was a protestant theologian, and truth be told I didn’t know much about him before I took a class on Christian theology during my last couple semesters, when we first met and I thought you were a genuine Christian because you went to Mass regularly,-”

“-please, don’t bring that up.” I said, interrupting her. It had always been a point of contention for her, that I’d pretended to be religious to make my mother happy, rather than denying the faith she’d taught me. Stella had always thought of it as lying, but for me I’d always thought it the wiser and kinder choice for my mother’s sake and mine. Even up to my mother’s death, I’d never had the spine to tell her that I’d abandoned my faith.

“The point is this theologian, he had an idea. He thought that everything was predestined. Sinners went to hell because God planned them to, saints went to heaven because God planned them to. All planned from the start.” she explained.

I let her go on, even though I did know what Calvinism was, vaguely. I just had never known that John Calvin had lived in Geneva. It was fine to just let her talk and explain it to me though, I liked listening to her explain things.

“So nothing fell out of God’s plan or sovereignty. He controlled everything about the world. Everything is known by him, and set in motion. Humans didn’t defy God, it was all in his power. Planned for, by him. Then, after this, came deism. In that belief, God became a great watchmaker. So, I guess God is Swiss.”

I let out a chortle. “Was that where all this was going; to say we’re in the real Jerusalem?”

Stella rolled her eyes. “No, of course not. I wish that was all this was about. The point is that in that belief God was responsible for absolutely everything. Fully sovereign. Everything was his, absolutely everything.”

“Wouldn’t that also make God , like, responsible for all sorts of stuff?”

She shrugged. “Maybe? Does it matter though? What difference would there in that belief, between God and the universe moving? Between our path being chosen, decided, and our perception that we’re choosing our own way. It wouldn’t matter would it?”

“But what does this have to do with -”

“It has to do with Aileen because…well, Elijah, mathematics doesn’t lie. It doesn't cheat. You can’t spin it in some what like people do about vaccines or evolution. What she showed me, what she explained, it was real.” Stella said, her expression becoming stern, and then distressed. A disturbed smile appeared on her face. “Her time travel isn’t like movies. It is real, but not how you would expect. There are no alternate time lines, no new universes, no changes to the future. It is like unscrambling an egg. It is like turning the flow of a waterfall around, but that water does have to fall again…or…agh, its hard to explain it in a simple way that isn’t, well, horrible.”

It didn’t make sense, how could any of that be horrible? “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

She shook her head. “Never mind, that isn’t the point. The point is - what if God were real, and we were all in his control? What if there was a being, that governed ever little action of our lives, every particle or wave, every bit of energy and matter? What if everything was planned, and begun by an action before it. Determinism, that sort of thing.”

I stared, trying to decipher her meaning, and yet becoming more and more uncomfortable with the implications. “It would be frightening, but-”

“-no, it would be wonderful. There would be nothing to worry about.” she exclaimed, “Because we’re just here for a moment. And if we can’t decide what that moment will be, or how long it is, or what it means - then we just have to live it. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter if there is a plan or a purpose for us. If what I said was true or not, we can’t change it. We just have to enjoy what a precious bit of existence it is.”

My mind flashed back to Nagasaki, and to the rabbits the ANZAC had spoken of. The humans in that city, the rabbits the man had talked about. They had just been living the only way they could, and then dying the only way they could. The thoughts sent a chill down my spine, but then a rush of relief fell over me. “We’re like, animals caught in a fire.”

“No,” she said, smiling. “One day the universe will die. We with it. It will die in a total cold, unmoving still. There, time will have no meaning. We are the fire now, the atoms that move and dance. Whether it is tomorrow or the next day, one day this will all vanish. We have to enjoy this now!”

“Is that a physicists way of saying I love you?” I asked, and turned away from the city to look at her. She looked back, and our eyes met for perhaps the thousandth time in the evening.

No.” she replied. “This is.”

Then she kissed me, and then did so again. I pulled away from her and gasped a bit. My heart beat fast and hard in my chest.

“It is getting really late, how long would it take to get back to your place?” I asked. She smiled and shook her head.

“Lets get a hotel. How about one of the five star ones over there!” she said, pointing across the lake.

My brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t that be expensive?”

She shrugged. “I'm just worried about right now Elijah. That is all I have. When you and Aileen leave, well…”

“-you’ll still have the real me here.” I said, chuckling a little at the thought. Here I was, getting my girlfriend to cheat on myself with me. Did that even count as cheating? “Who knows, maybe you’ll avoid all the stuff that caused us to break up, now that you know what is possible. Hey, doesn’t that kind of prove the whole determinism thing wrong,?”

She smiled, and I expected the smile to be sad, but it was happy. Her eyes looked like they wanted to cry tears of joy. “Yeah, sure. But right now, I have the you that is here, and I want to enjoy him.”

I would say that I returned the smile, but I had been non-stop smiling since we’d kissed, and then pulled out my phone. “Well, we will, but lets find a place that’s not many hundreds of dollars a night.”

And I did. It was a simple place, not lavish or fancy, but cozy and clean. And the last couple hours till we slept were filled with nothing but love and happiness.