There were, he concluded, two ways of looking at the passage of time. One was the fast way, of paying attention to minute changes and developments as they progressed. How the young ones got taller, how the newcomers gradually became less new, how relationships went from early stages to full bloom. And then, there was the slow way, of seeing it all play out again and again over the years. How the small things gradually added up, through repetition and subtle gradations, one layer added atop another, previous incarnations and variations imparting their wisdom to the new generations. Nothing new under the sun, yet somehow also new every time

He awoke early that morning. With nothing in particular to do that day, he decided to take a nice morning stroll, see the city in the morning light. It all looked different, the shadows all pointing in strange directions and the people elsewhere, like an alternate version of things ordinary

On a whim, he decided to enter the park, and there he saw something he’d never seen before. The sprinklers were all active, spraying water hither and dither, forming an almost – but not quite – interlocking chain of airborne wetness, moving in synchronized patterns

Smiling, he knew his many hours of puzzle gaming would finally come in handy

“What are these things we are putting into boxes, anyway?”

“Storage solutions. I found I have too many of them, and have to file them away for later use”

“Hold on. So you are saying that”

“Don’t say it”

“We’re packing things which you pack things into into boxes. Should we ever need to pack a large number of things into other things, we will only need to unpack these boxes”

“You said it”

“Y’know”

“Please don’t say it”

“There’s a lot to unpack here”

“There’s still three more rooms to go”

“Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin”