<br><br> <center>*Although physically by myself, the haunting Demon never leaves me, that Demon being the knowledge of my own terrible limitations, hopeless inadequacy, impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright ideas are, dancing in my brain, the reality is they are earthbound.*
― William Goldman</center>

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<br><br>Ten years ago when I was in England attending Cambridge University on a scholarship, the flashbacks began in earnest.

Oh, I had occasional moments growing up when I'd experience an overwhelming nostalgia for England, a consuming longing to be back, when the fact was, I had never been.

Whenever someone mentioned Shakespeare or the Queen when I was a young boy, I got the compelling sense I had an attachment.

Once when shopping at a supermarket  with my mother, I stood in awe in the cracker aisle, staring at a box of Old London Melba Toast, and repeating the words *Old London* over and over in my head as if to incant its presence.

But how could I feel such a deep familiarity with a place I had never been? 

<br><br>When a former roommate of mine from Cambridge told me they discovered an Anglo-Saxon graveyard under our dorm, it made perfect sense―I had been having visions of fair-haired men with swords and spears and round shields.

I also had Germanic sounding phrases running over and over in my head like a demented mantra―forġief ūs ūre gyltas, And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on costnunge―and these words were always associated with a red-haired girl.

I finally got up the nerve to repeat them to my thesis advisor, a fellow who specialized in Old English. He simply laughed and said, "I'd like to meet her―this red-haired lass―you're asking forgiveness and deliverance from temptation."

Now that I look back, I realize I still am...

Yep that's me, the act I've always known―feeling lost in my own time while seeking absolution from unknown crimes.

<br><br>So now, Nat has told me some more details about my previous life as James Wesley, who also attended Cambridge, albeit in the Thirties.

Like me, he also studied Victorian Lit and ostensibly was running away from Cindy, or Amber, as she was known then. But why did he come back, or more precisely, secretly return?

Has Cindy been withholding facts from me―details of a dissolute life I led back then?

<br><br>Perhaps she's trying to shield me. She must figure knowing how I deserted her would depress me and cause needless guilt―as though I don't have enough of that already.

But I need answers because the uncertainty of our past debilitates me. 

If I was in fact despicable and a heel back then, I can accept it and strive to do better in this lifetime. Well, that's the lie I tell myself when I'm at  my wit's end, which I am right now 

<br><br> I push myself away from my desk and scrub my face with my hands. I've wasted the better part of my morning sitting in my office musing about what Nat said last night on the phone.

I'm at an impasseI can't tell Cindy until I know more and hopefully Nat can shed some light on my past. But it's affecting me in the here and now, because every time I see Cindy I feel this huge question hanging over me―was I faithless or devoted to her?

But he fact it's all over and done―the past should be no consequence to me because it can't be helped , but it is because it affects the way I see myself going forward. And that's the rub.

Character is Fate, said Novalis—and I’m hoping my character is the reverse of what I know about James Wesley.



<br><br> <center>To be continued…</center>

<br><center>© 2020, John J Geddes. All rights reserved</center>

<br><center>[Photo](https://images.app.goo.gl/Y9dsrx9TXAih79qS6)</center>

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