Shadowlands

The current moment  

Dissolves almost instantly,

And yet also

Belongs to an adventure story

Stretching beyond measured days

Into the fullness of existence.

Life is made of such bits of progress.

A friend sends a message, just to check in.

A filtered sunbeam peeks through the blinds.

Dry oak leaves scurry inside 

To invade the house like lost friends

When I open the door.

These are part of a larger account;

They all preface the Great Story.

We are not isolated,

But live expectantly

Here in the Shadowlands.

Each small detail defines real time

As well as the future,

By continually introducing

The Story Without End.

Aslan turned to them and said: “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” Lucy said, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?” Their hearts leaped, and a wild hope rose within them. “There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands— dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle