- A stitch in time saves nine.
- Time is of the essence.
- Time is wine.
Giggles.
- I made that one up.
- I like the stitch saying best.
- Why?
- Because they couldn't have known.
- True.
- But as a metaphor, it comes quite close to the truth.
- Surprisingly close.
- And if anyone had realized, truly realized, they'd be here now.
- Yes they would.
- So here we are.

It wasn't often that Marcus Meticulum, while making the rounds of the time corridor, chanced upon two Oriental girls sitting before one of the temporal portals, coquetting over the nature of time. Marcus had been Oriental once, but that was a long time ago. Time, to those who'd attained awareness, was so much more than a linear chain of instances, each the cause of the next. No. Every single moment stood in relation to every other moment that ever existed, or ever would exist. These met at intangible intersections woven into the fabric of existence. But once the concept was grasped, to reconcile it with the idea that the chronological second was nothing more than an arbitrary object - that was enough to boggle a Buddhist. What could you expect, when a single second held more infinity than all the other seconds combined? The very measurement of time was a concept that only the gods could comprehend, hovering as they did, above the idea, like clouds over tumbling raindrops.

Marcus halted before the girls, sizing them up. One was elegant in style and apparel, the other had the rough-hewn glance of street-wisdom. They might have been snatched from a rush of early 21st century commuters. Snatched by sudden awareness. It went with the territory of Eastern mentality. He felt an immediate affinity towards them, but could not say why. "How did you arrive here?" he asked, bowing before them.

"You know that already," spoke Street-wise.

"I suppose I do," he answered, a gentle smile imposing itself over the puzzlement he had shown in the first moment. To comprehend was to awaken into the center of time. That is what had enabled them to pass through one of the portals.

"And now?" Elegant intimated.

"We traverse the corridor together," he concluded, not as a demand, but as a statement of the inevitable.

And so they strode along, trading sayings about that inexorable object they had all come to fathom.

- Time heals all wounds.
- Time will tell.
- Time is on our side.
- My, how times flies.
- Third time's a charm.
- Time is relative...

As they vanished around the passageway's bend, their voices faded along with the footsteps, footsteps that sounded oddly like the tickings of a clock.

Story #412

Thank you everyone who wrote stories, and for being so patient with me in posting this one.

News:

Madeleine has a couple of interesting new sites: Limilines about a new type of creativity and The Picture Plain with really cool photography.

Live@theGrouchoClub has a story "Locked Out" appearing in the Feel the Word magazine.

The Reverend Gisher has posted a story for Indeterminacy Photo #411.

Ian at Letters Home has posted something destined to become a classic: A Desiderata For Bloggers