The prophet stood in the middle of the street with his proclamation: “THE BEGINNING IS NEAR!” And no one knew what to think. What did he mean? The world for all appearance was in the middle—of something or rather, right? That was all that anyone knew of it. When they came forth from their mother’s womb it was to join a stream, the world stream, whose beginning was too far back for any memory, save stone, and stone it was sometimes difficult to pry any recollection from it, what had been when it had been younger. And the end, one might admit, was something of a mystery too, for when anyone ended they were no longer around to prize their circumstance. But when people said that the end was nigh, this was what people were expecting to hear, from the wild eyed and wild haired servant of some god or cause. It was understood: they were talking about the end of the world. So what was this, now, all about, the beginning? How can the world begin if we are at the middle? Or even were we to restart, wouldn’t the world have to end first, to begin again? The prophet said, “It will not be tomorrow, but some tomorrow’s tomorrow you will look around and wonder how it could have been, the injustice, the hunger, the hate, and the stupidity. For the world will wake from its madness, and sanity will dawn. Only fingers of that light peek through now, but night is ending. The day when it will be such day, it draws near.” Then the prophet disappeared, in a crowd that shuffled onward toward the future.
