Short Story, "You have to be There"

            "You have to be there," I said.  "It isn't about the ruins, it is about what happened in the ruins."

            "I understand you like history," Rae replied.  "But when you have seen one ruin you have seen them all."

            I sighed, and walked up behind her, and put my hands over her eyes.

            "This is a little invasive," Rae said.

            "Just be quite for a second and think with me," I said.  "Picture the ruins."

            "You covered my eyes so I could picture what was right in front of me."

            "Yes, smart ass, now do it."

            "Okay," she said.

            "Relax as we travel back through time a bit," I started.  "You are not from here, you don't speak the language outside of the words for inn or food, you use your fingers to show how much you are willing to pay for something and you are surrounded by people who all dress, eat, talk, and think different from you.

            "You lead a pack animal, he is smaller than the one you started with who died at a pit stop and you sold for meat, along with a good bit of what it had been carrying for a stunted profit, all in hopes of lightening the load, all they had were smaller animals."

            "Why did you stop?" Rae asked.

            "Let me show you," I moved my hands from her eyes.

            "Oh, my God," she leaned back into me and gazed around, shades of old merchants and soldiers walked around us, see through, but still having the color of their skin and clothing, a shine to their armor dulled by the haze of time being looked back through.  "What is this?"

            "You have to be there."  And so we walked through the ruins of this long ago world, through the shades of those who had gone before, seeing the stories of those whose names had been forgotten, whose wares had been unsold, the few who had been robbed or who lived in poverty.  "Time may have passed, but it was, and in these places, time is, and that is why I like them."

            "Okay, this is less boring."

            "It was never boring," I replied.  "You were just bored."