The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs.

Olivier Messiaen

Time passes. Each moment is stitched to the next, the seams so small you’ll never see them. You thought the water was cool at first, but now it freezes your skin. You thought the wind was a whisper, but now it screeches and scratches in your ears. Yet nothing has changed. Only the moments that have been passing, one by one by one. Time passes and everything in its path is ground down to dust.

Time passes. Each moment is an eternity, impossible to measure. Each endless moment ends the moment you grasp at it. Moment by moment by moment, our hearts shatter into a million tiny shards, scattered on the stones of time. Sunlight makes them sparkle, but the sunlight will not last. For time passes and light dims, and in darkness our hearts will be nothing but dust.

Time passes. Each moment is an opportunity, a chance for change. Each moment offers the door to escape. The sun will rise again, shining upon the remains of the past as they whirl in a kaleidoscope of rainbows. Piece by piece by piece, a mosaic is cobbled together, a glimmering image glowing amidst yesterday’s dust.

Time passes. It must. Without it, the light may not grow dim but will never grow brighter. Without it, the music becomes monotone, never louder, never softer. Each moment becoming one moment, no chance for movement within. Without time passing, there would no wind and no water to wash away the dust.

Inspired by Abyss of the Birds, the third movement of Quartet for the End of Time, by Olivier Messiaen.