How the future changes the past

I was standing one day on a deserted street, where gray houses stretched in a long row, and I was thinking about how everything in the world moves not in a straight line, but in loops, nooks, and strange bends. It seemed like only yesterday I was walking past an old lantern, and it suddenly spoke to me in a quiet voice I'd never heard before: "Why are you looking back if there's already emptiness there?"

And then I realized something strange: the past isn't something that's already happened. It lives and breathes, while the future whispers new words to it. One minute, the past can be stern and stubborn, like an old teacher, and the next, gentle and obedient, ready to rewrite itself at the dictation of events that haven't yet happened.

In our town, where every other passerby was rushing about their unknown business, the old folks often said, "Time is not a river, but a mirror that shakes with our steps." And I saw this reflection: the past changed, like living portraits on the walls of houses, and sometimes it seemed as if it were laughing at me—yes, laughing!—when I tried to understand what really happened.

And the future, oh miracle, arrives quietly and unnoticed, but with it comes power. It can nudge forgotten events toward new endings, revive old letters, and change the habits of long-dead people. A friend of mine, a merchant with a gray mustache, told me that his grandfather allegedly spoke to him through dreams, and then suddenly the events of that distant time became clear and even useful. "This future pulled me by the hand and made me realize," he said, "that the past is not dead at all!"

But don't think all this is just a game. Sometimes the past resists. It frowns, hides its secrets, whispers grievances and sins. And only a few—the desperate, the observant, or the insane—are able to grasp the quiet changes that the future brings. I, for example, felt how certain moments I thought long forgotten suddenly returned to me with new faces, new names, as if someone invisible were rearranging the pages of my life, adding unknown lines.

And so we live, between a past that still wants to be past, and a future that is already approaching us. Laughter and fear, wonder and bitterness intertwine in this strange dance, in which each of us plays and listens simultaneously. You look—and you understand: the past and the future are not two different shores at all, but one long, quiet, almost imperceptible bridge across which our lives walk.

And who knows, maybe one day we'll realize that we change the past every time we dream, decide, love, or doubt. And the future smiles softly, looking back at us through time, like an old friend we haven't yet met.