Time
The most plausible prophecy?
Time. We’re running out. 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030-2050 - D Day.
An angelic child sits opposite me on the train. What future for him? “The wettest winter on record.” Now the fields are drenched in early April dew. The sun glistens from the drops. Oil, oil, oil. Doubled in price. It’s the wretched war. Always war, but also peace. I turn on my phone and watch two young men process around the font of an Orthodox church.
“As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Hallelujah.”
The choir sings. The godparents follow the men in white. They are clutching the golden garment of their priest. Like children, they are innocent and sombre. The congregation hold tapering candles, posies of wild flowers and verdant leaves in their hands. One man smiles. The awe, the reverence, the beauty.
What will happen when it’s gone, burnt up? What future for these people, this planet, this place steeped in incense, prayer and hope?
I’m mindful of the scrawlings, unearthed after his death. Something about this place being the host to us humans, seen by him as parasites. I feel the sadness in his words, the inevitability of what is to come, the hopelessness. Was this why he drank? Why he play-acted, always being who he wasn’t? Was reality too stark for him? Doubtless, yes. ‘Poor’, broken Neil.
Time, time, time. It passes. It speeds up. I look back, I look forward. Like a female, two faced Janus, a secular goddess of time. I want to own my story, I want to write the brave new ending. I try, I try. But I am tired.
My train arrives. I see a big billboard marketing something which is ugly. I head for the park. The cool early morning sun greets me. The air is filled with the fragrance of hyacinths, bluebells, wet grass. I’m immediately transported back to my childhood.
Spring will soon turn into early summer. Mum will hit the road again. Sap rises, the grass is growing. Free grazing for the pony and goat,
‘Pack your things, Nancy. Not too many. Keep it light. The poor horse has to pull it all.’
I fold my clothes. We put them in net bags hung from the struts inside our bow top. Kitty gets restless. She knows. Mum is excited, the weight lifts, she smiles, has a lightness of step. How I miss her. Cruel time has snatched her away.
I feel the weight of her mantle slip from my shoulders. I am a Woman on the Edge of Time. I think about this life, full of mystery, sorrow, light, joy and power. I think about the beautiful, fragile, complex planet full of beautiful, fragile complex people. We follow our paths, we smile at one another, we breathe, we shout, we dance, we eat, we cry, we sleep, we dream, we fight. How will it end?
2026 + 30 = 2056. 2050 is D Day, crunch time. I wonder if the future will resemble the past.
Take plenty of water,
cool clothes;
smile,
be generous,
let go of rancour.
Life is short.
I’m feeling this with you, Nancy x
There’s a level of honesty here that’s hard to miss… and even harder to sit with.
What stood out to me isn’t just the sense that “time is running out,” but the weight underneath that. It doesn’t read like prediction as much as pressure—like something has already been taken, and now the question becomes… what else will time take?
The way you move between the global and the personal feels very real. The future of the planet… and the memory of your mother… somehow sitting in the same space. That mixing of the existential and the intimate—it doesn’t feel forced. It feels lived.
And the beauty throughout—spring, the church, the rituals—it doesn’t resolve the tension. If anything, it deepens it. Like the more beautiful something is, the more fragile it feels.
But what stayed with me most was the ending.
After all the scale… all the questions… it comes back to something incredibly simple:
Take water.
Stay cool.
Smile.
Be generous.
Let go.
It almost feels like the mind runs as far as it can go… and then returns with what is actually livable.
Not answers.
Not certainty.
Just a way of being.
There’s something quietly powerful in that.
Not because it solves anything… but because it doesn’t try to anymore.