junk time sucker

"Professor? You know my husband."

It becomes a trick of the clock. A drip in time forming an evaporated puddle on a creased up carpet. A puddle you can reach in even when it's gone. It's a modest way to make an entrance. Of course I remember her. I taught them both once.

"Madame! What a surprise! What brings you to Maine?"

"I am not really here, you see. I am visiting New York. I feel the ticking getting ever so faster every morning. I don't know how many trips across the ocean I have left in me. My husband respects you very much, professor, but he's too stubborn to ask for help with things he tries to ignore."

Her husband the now professor of philosophy.

"As you may have heard, the General Land Centennial Exhibition will open in May. I thought it would be wonderful if you could come and write about some of the fabulous inventions of our... people."

She wanted to use a different word, but couldn't. She left quickly afterwards. Excusing herself for one reason or another, leaving behind a brochure with information about the event.

Belial is looking through a book in the next isle.

"Pretty thing. She'll be the first lady one day, you know."

"I do."

"She's not good at lying though."

"No."

"You're not thinking of actually going, are you? But then again, might be a good chance to see the old world before they raze it to the ground."

"What?"

"What."