Can Time See İtself ?

Time accumulated, and within a brief moment, an eternity unfolded. Then, it returned to its ordinary flow. A single day had ended like an arrow released, swift and sharp yet somehow, it had come back again.

Time moved down, then up. It spun upside down, like electricity severed from its source without direction, without certainty. Then it stopped. Then it returned. It calmed, like still water. It learned to flow slowly toward the shore. It had seen the ocean.

It grew heavy. It dropped its burden onto the shore. It became light again and took on a new weight from the land. Time, at last, saw timelessness and surrendered to it. Every time it believed it would conquer it, it failed. It was defeated. It was afraid. It retreated. But again, and again, it continued to turn. And as it turned, there was another turning beneath it. And another, even further down. Who could have known that, layered upon time, another life was unfolding? And that all of them were submitted to a serpent even larger than themselves coiled, tightening, silently surrounding everything. Then, one day, time recognized itself.

It began. It reached down into the layer below, where it had seen a version of itself, and pulled it up. Then it did the same again. And again. Like climbing a spiral staircase, it rose from within itself. Each time, one hand reached downward, while another hand rose from below grasping upward toward the light.

Below, there was a pot that would never boil a heavy, crowded vessel holding millions, pressed tightly together, leaning on one another’s time, trapped in the illusion of greatness. Then, time began to take shape. What was once considered great shrank. What had been seen as small was now exalted. Time grew fearful again and withdrew. The ocean waves, silent and vast, began to reveal themselves from all sides from above and below. Time grew heavy once more, shed its burden at the shore, and became light again. And once again, it took on a new weight from the edge. Then it retreated to a place it had once seen.

It was some time ago perhaps earlier, perhaps outside of time when two hands tore through the air, ripping a wall from the center, splitting it in two. The entire past surged forward, nearly touching the present. Two steps forward, one back. Two steps back, three forward. Five ahead, four behind.

And while all of this was happening, had happened, and was still to comeA small dwarf of time laughed. It trusted in the nested pots, one within the other, and in the shadow that stood behind it.

All the moments of time passed by, flickering back and forth, laughing at the dwarf, even as they remained caught in its darkness.

And within the illusion of time they had been told, they consumed time without ever truly knowing what it was.