And as that stalactite dripped onto the cave fl oor, a stalagmite began to rise. Over the centuries, the two points grew toward each other, as if drawn by magnets, but so slowly that Dor never took notice. Once, he had prided himself on keeping time with water. But man invents nothing God did not create fi rst. Dor was living in the biggest water clock of all. He never thought about this. Instead, he stopped thinking altogether. He stopped moving. He no longer stood up. He put his chin in his hands and held still amid the deafening voices. Unlike any man before him, Dor was being allowed to exist without getting older, to not use a single breath of the numbered breaths of his life. But inside, Dor was broken. Not aging is not the same as living, and without human contact, his soul dried up. As the voices from Earth increased exponentially, Dor heard them without distinction, the way one hears falling raindrops. His mind dulled from inactivity. His hair and beard grew comically long, as did the nails of his fi ngers and toes. He lost any concept of his own appearance. He had not seen his image since he and Alli went to the great river and smiled at their refl ection in the water. He wanted desperately to hold on to every memory like that. He squeezed his eyes shut to recall every detail. Until fi nally, at some unmarked point in his purgatory, Dor shook the lethargy of his darkness, sharpened the edge of a small rock, and began to carve on the walls. He had carved on Earth but always as a form of timekeeping, counting, notching moons and suns, the earliest math in the world. What Dor carved now was diff erent. First he made three circles to remember his children. He gave each of them a name. Then he carved a quarter moon to remind him of the night he told Alli, “She is my wife.” He carved a box shape to remind him of their fi rst home together—his father’s mud-brick house—and a smaller box to symbolize the reed hut they shared. He drew an eye shape to remind him of Alli’s lifted gaze, the look that made him feel tipped over. He drew wavy lines to suggest her long dark hair and the serenity he felt when he buried his face inside it. With each new carving, he spoke out loud. He was doing what man does when left with nothing. He was telling himself his own life story. 27 Lorraine knew there was a boy involved. Why else would her daughter have worn heels last night? She only hoped Sarah hadn’t picked a jerk like her father. Grace knew Victor was frustrated. He hated to lose. And it saddened her that this last fi ght, against a terminal illness, was destined to be a defeat.
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