The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything occurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself occurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?

Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being

We met before, you know. It was 1943. I was in the Army
a USO canteen in Temple Emanu-El
on Fifth Avenue. Not many soldiers
visiting just a few girls you were
pretty had short dark hair and shy at doing
your duty supposed to be cheering up
soldiers going off to war away from
home places far away from New York not
New Jersey just across the river
where I came from

We talked drank coffee ate cookies.
I took you home on the subway, the Canarsie Line
to Brooklyn-- I think that line goes to another part of Brooklyn
Maybe that was another girl--
You lived near Eastern Parkway we walked down the middle
of it a wide pathway trees benches
if it had beeen summer there would have been people strolling
bicyclists horses but now it was winter late
in the afternoon but a mild day we sat for awhile
on a bench you told me how you loved books
when you were younger you walked with heavy loads of books
in your arms to the library at the end of the parkway and
now you were studying biology at Brooklyn College
had wanted to be a doctor like your father he had died and
you could no longer see your way clear. We walked to your
apartment house you thanked me for seeing you home
I wanted to make a date but I was awkward
didn't make a good impression you said, No
the elevator door opened and you stepped back into it
the door closed.

That was the end of it until now. Not much has changed
you tell me how you walked with books in your arms to the library
still say No and as to this story you say that wasn't you
you were only four years old then. But time isn't linear
it was you then and it's you now. Some is memory but maybe it's fiction too
and if it is, then the truest part is the fiction.