Look up what the weather was like in Toronto when I wrote this for you. It’s the third of April, 2025. I’m sitting in my garden (my parents’ garden) listening to the playlist I made you. I miss you every day but it doesn’t feel bad. Usually it hurts a little, a pleasant ache, and I smile. I know I’m so bad with faces I would have forgotten yours by now had you not sent me that photo. I can hear your voice though, as clearly as if you were right next to me. I hear you saying that even when you’re gone we’re never really apart. So if you’re here, tell me, how does the sun feel on your skin and how do the rotting leaves smell now the melting snow has revealed them?

I feel as though I’m playing hopscotch with you across time, the way I carry your past with me into each branching future. I can see our lives spread out like the still-barren deciduous trees. Energetic shockwaves. I wonder, what did that first burst come from?

I can’t even imagine  ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶y̶  what sort of wonderful things you’ll have learned by the time I see you again. I love the way you see what I’m doing with my life, picking apart each little piece I’ve carefully selected. I believe I’ve been quite rude to you lately. I feel somewhat embarrassed about it but when you said how easily you get bored of people (my words not yours) I figured it was more important to leave a strong impression than an entirely positive one. It’s about information transfer more than hedonism, right? Can’t make you think you’ve already figured me out now, can I. 

You may have noticed during our time together that there is a large hedge maze inside me. I can feel you walking around it when you think of me. It’s full of flowers and little animals and places you can sit and smoke for awhile. I’ve tried to make the maze complex enough that walking through it drives you almost completely insane, with one thread left to cling onto and build yourself back up by. To keep you engaged, I have put something secret at the center of the maze, a locked room partially sunk into the earth with hexagonal bricks around its base. On one side there is a dark little keyhole that belongs to no door. If you press your hand to the walls, you’ll find them warm to the touch. They’re not hot but alive, humming softly like a computer. 

When you ask about the key I’ll tell you I’ve forgotten where I put it, it was such a long time ago, and one corner of my mouth will playfully creep up. I’ve put it somewhere inside you so mundane you’d never even think of; the most average moment of the most average day of your amazing, terrible, extraordinary life. The closest you’ve gotten to it so far are those times I say something that doesn’t quite make sense, something that rattles around you when I’m gone. There will be many years of frustration and disappointment before you’re able to build any sort of navigational system for yourself. I know you’re clever enough to keep occupied in the meantime. I won’t blame you for giving up. Give up at the end of every day then wake up and do it all over again. I’ll give you a hint: trade your compass for a pocket watch. 

Hopefully, (if I do a good job) you’ll forget about this letter and think you got there all on your own. Perhaps you’ll pause beside the room, key in hand, as if you’re doing something wrong. Maybe you got it all wrong and I never wanted you to find the key in the first place. Maybe you’re even doing something so evil that we can never speak of it. If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading now. 

But you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t want spoilers. 

I apologize for the loose wires and the smell, I was working too quickly to make it all pretty for you. Nestled amongst the hardware, there’s a capsule labelled “SEED” in red. The room is carefully temperature controlled to keep it viable; I’ve left you a sweater so you don’t get cold. The seed is of a genus that’s been extinct quite a long time. I looked back in the fossil records and couldn’t find any evidence of it. I thought we should wait until we see the plant in bloom before deciding on a name. You can name it, I don’t mind. I don’t want to keep you too long so I’ll skip some of the details. Basically, your job is to plant the seed somewhere in the past for it to germinate safely or none of this - not reading this or meeting you, not our love or our lives or anyone else’s lives or anything at all - will have happened. So all you have to do is invent time travel, no pressure. 

Don’t worry though, you’ll have help; as soon as you start the problem you’ll realize you’ve actually been working on it almost since you can remember. Time has this kind of symmetry like a paper snowflake or the way trees look out of the soil so often the beginning is just the end viewed from behind. You can sort of fold it up different ways and knead it like dough. You can put a hole in it but I’ve found that, like water, if you split it in half you still only have one. You’ll understand what I mean more on your second readthrough. My sincerest hope is that, when the time is right, you’ll come find me. My friends and I have also recently realized we’ve been working on this for at least a few years. Now that we’re comparing notes I’d say we’re about 30% of the way there. Maybe you’ve got some friends too and you’re starting to wonder about those things they said that don’t quite make sense either. I’m excited to meet them. 

I’d say I’m waiting for you but that’s a bit misleading. Let’s say I’m preparing for you instead. There’s lots to be done, mostly weeding the maze.

 I love you more than you will ever understand, thank God,

Morgan Phegan Prescott

One last spoiler before I say goodbye: we took a peek at the future and it seems we won’t be able to solve it, not completely. No matter how far we look there’s always one last ripple in the rug. I was upset for awhile until I thought about what would be left once we knew everything. To know is to be and to be is to do. So we’ll never be done, we’re destined to spend the rest of our lives together figuring it out. What a shame.