85,000 days to 85,000 years

A dream from many years ago written in short story form:

85,000 days to 85,000 years 

She woke from her nap, the yellow of her bright uniform greeting her gaze, her face gently resting on her elbows. 

Looking up, she saw her charge, a man who appeared at the moment to be about 40. 

He smiled at her with a sincerity she felt warm from. 

She smiled lightly back, and rose to check on his room unit.

She read his chart, 

Foreigners. From a lost isle. 

Poisoned as youth,

 from an isolated island where folks live almost forever. 

The poison accelerates his aging, 

He lives his whole life each day

And has to recall and remember, yet he wakes youthful as the day he was poisoned each day, not remembering his life after then. 

SHe stared at the chart, hardly able to comprehend how. How was it possible? 

So she sat with him. 

They talked, talked of what little he understood of this different society, how he remembered the society from which he came. 

He seemed at times like an unsophisticated sort, not knowing what certain gizmos were, or how to act or respond to colloquialisms. But his clarity of thought and presence were incredibly sharp. 

That afternoon they went to the shore outside the facility. They made a tiny bonfire. They talked about life and the nature of reality til dusk, his form growing old in decades by the hour. As he died, a satisfied and soft happiness seemed to wrap his work face with gratitude, the warm light of the fire gently flickering across his smile as it loosened into the sleep of death. 

But then a strange thing began to happen, to unfold. 

It seemed a sliver of him, a thread began to unwind itself, it uncoiled the weave of him in a spiral, slowly unstitching itself in time. He unwove like a glowing sock bein knit in reverse. Slowly. Slowly enough to watch each facet and glitter in detail of this impossible thing before her eyes. And then, the thread of his being rewound itself and stitched him back up, as a young 30 year. 

She takes him back to the facility, where one of her co-workers says to her, how often do you fall?

To which she says, I don’t know, maybe I trip once every two weeks? 

That’s not statistically possible because you would have fallen and hurt your head. 

She ponders this, and wonders if she has fallen, or hit her head. Or is not remembering something herself. 

She realizes she has short term memory loss. She has been caring for this patient for a few years now. She is the only one who has seen his glittering rewinding of time. 

She realizes the time she has spent with this soul, is like many lifetimes. 

His continuity of character is impeccable. 

She realizes why she keeps caring for him day after day through her memory loss. She had fallen, in real life, and hurt her head. But she had also fallen in love with him. And she carried  him to his bed each night, an old man, and had been greeting the fresh-faced young man with amnesia every morning. She knew if she were lucky, as she got old, he’d get to care for her half the day. But she mourned that he’d be alone some day, Long after she died. So she loyally did her best to give him companionship deeper than the citizens of this unfamiliar world. something to remember. His people were not like hers. Even for him having been poisoned in that lost world. He would live nearly forever, especially now. 85,000 days turned to 85,000 years.