Post by Katpride on Oct 22, 2021 16:52:28 GMT
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The terrible thing about children is that they’re curious. You show a child the world and they seek to understand it. They know so little, and every new thing they uncover is endlessly fascinating to them. Day by day, their world expands.
You give a child all of time to explore, and they want to know what happens at the end of that time. They ignore your warnings - because you did warn them, of course you did, and you kept them sheltered for as long as you had been - and they wind the clock forward until the ticking stops.
And they see what waits for all time travelers, when the last grain of sand falls. A push. A scream. Terror and acceptance and rage and sorrow all condensed into one moment, an explosion of light so blindingly brilliant it will dance in their mind’s eye for years to come.
And then nothing. And then, the bedroom they had been so eager to explore beyond.
And then they understand. And they grow up. And they become you.
You, who knows too much and too little, who is so powerful but so helpless to change the whims of fate and time and eventuality.
You, who will one day have to face the day and the hour and the minute and the second of terror and acceptance and rage and sorrow. You, who will not live to see the next second after that, with stillness and emptiness and grief and life continuing on. Or the second after that. Or the second after that. Or the millions, billions, trillions of seconds that follow that one, irreversible moment.
Time is a cruel, cruel mistress. She doesn’t play fair. What she takes, she does not return. Her chosen servants can only follow her whims until the day when she comes for them, as she does for every creature in her embrace.
There’s a certain peace in knowing how your story ends, even if that knowledge weighs heavily in your mind. Has weighed in your mind since that day, so long ago and so far in the future. There is always a price to pay, in matters like these. At least there’s the time before that; the endless compounded loops, the joy and brightness of the world, the moments that make everything worth it. The specter of your future may haunt you, but it cannot reach you just yet.
You still have time.
The terrible thing about children is that they’re curious. You show a child the world and they seek to understand it. They know so little, and every new thing they uncover is endlessly fascinating to them. Day by day, their world expands.
You give a child all of time to explore, and they want to know what happens at the end of that time. They ignore your warnings - because you did warn them, of course you did, and you kept them sheltered for as long as you had been - and they wind the clock forward until the ticking stops.
And they see what waits for all time travelers, when the last grain of sand falls. A push. A scream. Terror and acceptance and rage and sorrow all condensed into one moment, an explosion of light so blindingly brilliant it will dance in their mind’s eye for years to come.
And then nothing. And then, the bedroom they had been so eager to explore beyond.
And then they understand. And they grow up. And they become you.
You, who knows too much and too little, who is so powerful but so helpless to change the whims of fate and time and eventuality.
You, who will one day have to face the day and the hour and the minute and the second of terror and acceptance and rage and sorrow. You, who will not live to see the next second after that, with stillness and emptiness and grief and life continuing on. Or the second after that. Or the second after that. Or the millions, billions, trillions of seconds that follow that one, irreversible moment.
Time is a cruel, cruel mistress. She doesn’t play fair. What she takes, she does not return. Her chosen servants can only follow her whims until the day when she comes for them, as she does for every creature in her embrace.
There’s a certain peace in knowing how your story ends, even if that knowledge weighs heavily in your mind. Has weighed in your mind since that day, so long ago and so far in the future. There is always a price to pay, in matters like these. At least there’s the time before that; the endless compounded loops, the joy and brightness of the world, the moments that make everything worth it. The specter of your future may haunt you, but it cannot reach you just yet.
You still have time.