You are here

The grisly details.

You are here. This is now. Now is now, not then, not later, not that, but now. Do you see? Now you don't.

Here is a place to be for a momentary quarrel with an unknown foe. The seals are getting closer, now. Closer and closer and closer, but that was then. Now, there is no way to tell. No way to determine both velocity and position in one fell swoop, for now the means are limited, the resources are limited, and until such time as the means and the notions and the technologies change, Heisenberg's rule holds. To measure is to affect, and to affect is to effect, and for now, there is no way to affect without effection. Until then, that is now.

And we can't see the seals.

Celia turns. "You see it now," she says dreamily. "You see it and you hear it and they're singing, singing so beautifully."

See it? What's to see? Now is now and seeing was then, and... eyes shut, there is nothing. Now.

"You're insane." She whispers it like a secret melded to the heart, and it is as meaningless as then, so I open my eyes and I look and I see and there she is, silhouetted on her spire of rock, peering out into the wind as her hair and her garments flutter like the banners of some forgotten kingdom. The sky lays out its vastness and the clouds roar by, and she smiles, the most beautiful smile I have ever seen...

"Crazy."

Celia's smile broadens. "You said it first, love. Now you hear it last."

But now is now. Last is later, it's then, it will come and it will pass, and it will be gone. When? Why, just now, and suddenly I hear it too, the rocks singing their strange tunes in the empty world, alone, alone, secrets for a secretive existence, reality for an unbroken heart.

Celia jumps.

We're all mad here.

What?