Through the Magical Door: A Tale of Love, Loss, and Redemption in Renaissance Brazil

He remembered their daughter's birth as clear as day, even though a hundred years or more had passed since then on Earth. Time moves differently and sometimes you forget things from your own world because there is so much going on here that you can barely keep up with what is happening around you at any given moment in time in this other world where children are born old men and women are young men or women again and back again every hundred or hundred fifty years depending on whom you ask about it - the journeymen or the nomads? - but either way, the end result was always the same: everything kept changing until eventually you stopped changing yourself and found yourself stuck in whatever form you happened to be at any given moment in time - young adult, old adult, child, teen, middle-aged man or woman... Damn! Her name! What was her name!? Rachel! Rachel! That's right! And where was she!?

He turned back to his wife who was crying now openly, now that he wasn't looking at her anymore, and tried to push himself off the floor again but his legs wouldn't hold his weight anymore so he ended up sitting instead on the hard stone floor of their house which suddenly felt much colder than usual today (which today? This day or some other day?) while Mystie purred anxiously next to him hoping perhaps that if she continued making noise she could wake him up from whatever dream this seemed like because nothing else made sense anymore except maybe those damned hummingbirds outside chasing each other around trees that were bigger than any tree should be able [be]... [be?]... Should be able to be? Or simply were allowed by whatever rules governed this place where everything changed all the time until finally it didn't change anymore... Maybe... Maybe...?

[Where am I?] He asked himself as he opened his eyes onto a bright sunny morning somewhere far away from here where people lived normal lives with normal jobs in normal houses with normal families who fought over normal meaningless things like who gets to take out the trash tonight or whose turn is it tomorrow night to do dishes or cook dinner or make sure the kids get ready for school early enough so they aren't late for class... Normal people who thought about normal things like what color new car should I buy next month because my old car has too many miles even though I love it dearly because I've owned it since I was twenty-two years old when I finally got a real full-time job instead of just odd jobs during summer vacations between college semesters... Well, maybe not all normal but most definitely not like this place where we were born into a world that changes all around us every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year no longer measured by numbers but instead by how many centuries ago something happened because even numbers are irrelevant here where everything changes all around us all the time... No... Not "around us". "To us". Everything changes "to us" instead because everyone keeps getting older faster than we remember our childhoods being lived only yesterday... Only yesterday...? Yesterday!? What day is this!? What year?! Is my little girl alive?! She can't be dead! No! Never! Never ever ever never ever ever never ever never ever never ever never never never never ever never ever ever never ever ever ever never ever ever --

[Rachel!] He screamed as loud as he could before his voice gave out completely, leaving only tears streaming down his face as he watched his wife crushingly hug their cat against herself while giant tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving streaks clear enough in even this sunlight to see how many years old they really were behind them... More than a few decades at least if not a century or two, probably more because who could tell anymore how long anything lasted when nothing stayed constant except for death itself - here every single person you met might die every single day but just as often they might die once a decade if not once a century, depending on how lucky they were; how well they managed their energy; how strong their heartbeat remained; how healthy their blood flowed; how well their skin held together; how quickly they healed; how quick they ran; how fast they flew through life itself - but always eventually died anyway while others remained eternally young forever living life exactly one hundred times faster than those around them so much faster in fact that within minutes, decades would pass by unnoticed by those who lived among mortals, while for others, 100 years might as well have been 100 minutes spent merely drinking tea waiting for lunch to arrive at high noon instead of enjoying eternal youth running across fields of flowers blooming beneath rainbows flying above oceans made entirely out of lemonade traveling through forests filled with butterflies flying past rainbows made entirely out of lilacs following streams lined with giant glowing rocks lining up along the sides of rivers flowing from massive bubbling waterfalls leading up towards mountains covered in snow glittering brightly in sunlight reflecting upon grasslands painted

in shades of gold and green.