MidReal Story
Eternal Echoes
Scenario: In a terrence malick style movie, Michael Fassbender travels back in time where he encounters an alternate version of his late wife played by liv ullman. His love quickly reignites while she is cautious of this stranger.
Create my version of this story
Jessica Chastain
a friend or relative of Liv Ullman's character, supportive but skeptical of the situation, redhaired with vibrant eyes, pragmatic yet empathetic.
Liv Ullman
the late wife and central love interest, cautious of her husband's return, slender with soft features, wise and conflicted.
Michael Fassbender
the time traveler and husband, deeply in love with his wife, tall with rugged features, introspective and determined.
I’m not sure how I got here.
I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if this is real.
I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.
But she’s here.
She’s right there.
And she’s beautiful.
She’s more beautiful than I remember.
I can’t take my eyes off her.
I can’t believe she’s here.
She looks up and sees me staring at her, and she smiles.
She smiles the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, and my heart aches with love for her.
She knows me, but she doesn’t know me yet.
She knows me from the future, but not from the past.
She knows me from a time that hasn’t happened yet, a time that may never happen now that I’m here, now that I’ve come back to this time and place to find her again, to be with her again, to hold her in my arms again, to kiss her lips again, to tell her how much I love her again.
I want to run to her and take her in my arms and never let go of her again, but I can’t.
I stand frozen in place, staring at her and gasping for the breath I can’t seem to catch.
She’s so beautiful.
She’s so perfect.
She’s so… impossible.
She shouldn’t be here.
She should be gone, dead, buried, but she’s not.
She’s here in front of me, alive and well, and I don’t understand how that can be.
My heart hammers in my chest and my head spins as I try to make sense of it all, but I can’t.
There’s no sense to be made of it.
There’s only her, standing there as if nothing has changed, as if nothing is wrong, as if she’s been waiting for me all this time.
My mind races through the possibilities, through the reasons and the causes and the why’s and the how’s, but all I can think is that I don’t care about any of that.
I don’t care about anything except her.
My beautiful Liv Ullman.
My wife, my lover, my friend.
My everything, everything I ever wanted, everything I ever needed, everything I ever dreamed of having and more.
And she’s here.
And she’s real.
And she loves me too.
And I’m going to make things right again between us, because it’s wrong for us to be apart like we are now, and it’s wrong for us to have been apart for so long before.
My beautiful Liv Ullman is walking toward me and I’m counting every step she takes because every step brings us closer to each other and closer to being together again the way we were always meant to be.
The way we will be again, forever and ever Amen, because this time nothing is ever going to take her away from me.
The first thing I notice is that he looks sad, which isn’t surprising because he always looks sad these days, even when he smiles.
But then he sees me standing here, at the end of the path leading down to the beach, and his eyes go wide with surprise and disbelief.
And then he gets an expression on his face that makes me feel like he’s seeing a ghost, which isn’t surprising either, since that’s what he must think he’s seeing now.
I wonder how long it’ll take him to figure out that there’s no way for me to be here unless he used the same machine that brought him back to save my life all those months ago?
I wonder how long it’ll take him to figure out if he did something to change history, or if he went back to a different time than the one where we found each other?
I wonder how long it’ll take him to realize that there was never any way for us to save each other even if we’d had more time together than we did?
I know it then, it can only be him, even though it can’t be him, it must be him, even though it shouldn’t be him, because he’s here, he’s really here, he came back for me, he came back to find me, just like he promised me he would do, in his own time, in his own way, in his own place, but always here, always looking for me, always finding me, because we’re meant for each other, because we’re connected by a thread that can never break, because we are so much a part of each other that we can never truly be apart.
I know it then, with every fiber of my being, with every beat of my heart, with every breath that passes through my lips, that it can only be him, because it could never have been anyone else but him, because we are meant for each other and we always will be.
“It’s you,” I say, and then he says, “It’s me,” and then we both say, “It’s you,” together, as if we’re finishing each other’s sentences, which we probably are doing, because that’s what we always do, because that’s what we’ve always done, ever since we first met, ever since we first knew each other, even before we knew each other, because we were always meant for each other, because we always knew it would be us in the end.
But not like this.
Not now, not here, not today, not ever.
It can’t be right.
It can’t be real.
But it is real.
It is right.
I know it is right because when his hand comes up to cup my cheek, when his fingers brush away the tears that are falling down my face, when his eyes meet mine, when his lips touch mine, everything else disappears and all I feel is love.
All I feel is his love for me, all I feel is my love for him, all I feel is our love for each other, and all I want is to hold him close and never let him go again.
All I want is to kiss him forever and ever and ever.
The memories flood back then, flooding over me like a tsunami of sorrow and happiness that threatens to drown me if I let it.
I will myself not to let it.
Instead, I will myself to remember everything.
I remember meeting him, I remember falling in love with him, I remember marrying him, I remember being pregnant with his child, I remember losing our child, I remember losing him too, and I remember dying without him.
It was such a beautiful day, just like this one, sunny and warm and clear, just like this one, and we were so happy, just like we are now.
We were so happy to be together, just like we are now.
We were so happy to be in love, just like we are now.
We were so happy to be getting married, just like we were now.
We were so happy to be starting a family of our own, just like we were now.
We were so happy.
Until we weren’t.
Until everything changed.
Until we lost everything we ever had together.
Until I lost him.
I see it all happening again, as if it’s happening right in front of me instead of just in front of my eyes.
I see Michael standing there, right behind me, with a smile on his face and an expectant look in his eye.
I see the look on his face changing as he sees mine change, as happiness fades away and is replaced with shock and horror instead.
I see him reaching out to me even as I reach out to him, calling my name even as I call his name in return, asking me what’s wrong even as I ask him what’s wrong instead.
I see him wrapping his arms around me even as I wrap my arms around him in return, and then I see myself getting weaker even as he gets weaker instead.
I see myself falling down even as he falls down too, and then I see myself dying at last even as he dies in return.
He’s dying all over again; this time I’m dying with him too.
He’s dying all over again; this time he’s taking me with him too.
He’s dying all over again; this time we’re dying together too.
This time I’m seeing myself die all over again but this time I’m seeing it from a distance because this time I’m not dying at all.
This time I’m already dead.
This time I’m watching myself die all over again but this time I have a choice because this time I can stop.
I can stop my heart from breaking.
I can stop my life from ending.
I can stop his life from ending too.
This time I can stop us both from dying.
This time I can save us both instead.
This time we’re not dying at all.
This time we’re coming back to life again.
And so I do.
I come back to life again.
And so does he.
He comes back to life again too.
And then we’re both alive again, just like that, and then we’re both here again, just like this, and then we’re both together again, just like we used to be, and then we’re both in love again, just like we always were.
And then we’re both happy again, just like we always were too.
But then he’s gone.
And then he’s gone at last.
Fassbender was crying so hard that his tears were falling down on my face and my neck and my chest and my back, but it wasn’t hurting me at all because it was just a dream after all, or at least that was all that it seemed to be at first, but then I realized that it was probably more than that instead because otherwise it wouldn’t have felt so good even though it should have felt so bad instead, so very bad enough that nothing should have been able to make me feel so good except being able to see him again.
Except being alive again.
Except being in love again.
