The system is under siege. The unsystematic is gathering its forces just outside the system's wall and whether or not the system can survive appears to be a matter of time, or fate, or destiny. The system, like the story, begins and ends. Western civilization began and it will end; the human species began and it will end. If the time has come the corporate body dies. The war against chaos depends upon a finite quantity of time. The question is, what time is it?

The clock starts ticking at conception and at some point on the continuum which follows the originating conception, the clock stops ticking. How much time do I have left? What will I experience when the ticking stops? If I turn my attention to that second question, then I find myself less preoccupied with the first.

The great public drama that swirls about my hermitage is all about time. Do we have enough? It is assumed that time is all there is, and that to run out of it is a disaster, not unlike those disasters perpetuated in time. What evidence is there, that is not fantastic, to support this assumption? I want to investigate this public assumption; perhaps they are wrong.