The Cabin Of Now

The rain had begun to fall on the thin roof, the grasses of the yard and the old van.  Worms rose and birds descended.  Window shut and cupboards opened.  Pots of tea steamed and thoughts and aspirations shrunk from the great world to that which could be reached without using exterior doors.  Home fires were stoked while grassy weeds flourished unchallenged.

We sat, unbelievably youthful faces peering out fogged windows.  We watched the world drown, playing a game where we guessed who was looking back at us.  Ann said Linda was drawing smiley faces in window condensation and thinking about boys.  I squinted and made out the tiny shack at the top of the field.  Dim light pressed weakly against the night.  I used half vision and half imagination to create the silhouette of Mary.  The great distance began to shrink as our minds sought one another.

The room was warming from the fireplace, thickening the fog on the windows.  I wiped my hand across and drips of condensation streaked slowly down. Time was exactly current.  The future and past ceased to exist.  14 billion years up until now were extinguished and whatever time lay ahead surrendered its ages-long war to the present.  With no competition, Now was the only country left in the world, the only port available to weary sailors, so long at sea they'd forgotten the extinct names of their homelands.  Nor what royalty had sent them off. 

Now was a swirling whirlpool pulling everything in like a black hole.  Now was getting ever larger and denser and all of us wondered what there was outside this small cabin.  Linda was lost to the sea and Mary was adrift just at the edge of my vision.  She was slowly and helplessly floating away from me.  Now was this fire and this house and its trapped inhabitants, playing card games to try and restart time.

Mary wiped fog from her window as the sky descended with its rain and atmosphere.  After some time, or no time, but many hands of cards, I returned to the window, wiped the fog and found only darkness peering back.