In the early days of the world, we watched God from the room of broken mirrors, drinking afternoon tea with dead superstars and poets from the underworld.
Mangy grey rats built cities in our walls, feeding on sawdust and bonemeal from the tombs of saints.
Davy Jones of nautical reputation lived on the floor below and complained to us about the noise and the hot water. Whores dropped in for a few words in passing. The landlord collected payments.
Gravity pulled us down.
In that age, clocks hadn’t yet begun to move. Father Time was still wandering through the weeds on the side of the train tracks, blowing on a rusty harmonica. Before long, Past, Present, and Future began to burn away as light from incandescent street lamps.
Below the surface of the ground, cathedrals were built in lava pits and cardinals feasted at immaculate banquets. A yellow staircase was built two miles high and further, ascending to the black abyss that consumes the center of the universe. The Ark was built and subsequently lost to the Trojans, and everybody was put on trial for treason, including the President.
Daylight faded. The atomic furnace buzzed.
After tea, as night began to whisper, we would sit on the windowsill, smoking, and watch policemen hunt for sharks in the street. We saw refugees taking turns catching lightning bolts and diving into the sea. We watched aging skeletons returning from the daily grind and fighter pilots tugging at the eye of the hurricane, tearing a trench in the sky.
Storm clouds gathered and ripened in the abyss left by the hurricane, and the primeval rain poured. A cold wind blew. The underworld flooded, and the young planet sang.
The storm lasted ten thousand years, and afterwards, dawn finally came. The door of our room blew open, and outside the fly and the sunflower danced naked in the shimmering stream. We ventured into the wilderness and came upon the hourglass, which lay melting in the sun.
The air was warm and forgetful; the sky was a fountain of youth. The keeper of the lighthouse opened his window. Doves made celestial music.
Scientists examined the embryo and discovered the golden spiral. Bands played in basements, and radio signals fluttered like butterflies in the breeze. A vase was broken. Wine was uncorked. The circus came to town.
We walked down to the radiation factory, and Fate was waiting for us there in the likeness of a black raven. We followed her into the horizon’s shapeshifting oasis, and looking behind us, we caught a glimpse of the room we had left, and beyond it, we saw the caravan of memory, stretching seamlessly backwards through the infinite doorways of time.