FALLING 29 mysterious bearded fi gure was, the artist claimed, a symbol of time that had come to him in a dream. A nineteenth-century etching depicted another bearded man, this one holding an infant, symbolizing the New Year. No one knows why the artist chose this image. He also told colleagues he had seen it in a dream. In 1898, a bronze sculpture showed a more robust man, still bearded but bare-skinned and fi t, holding a scythe and an hourglass and positioned over a giant clock in a rotunda. The model for this bearded man remains a mystery. But he was referred to as “Father Time.” And Father Time sits alone in a cave. He holds his chin in his hands. This is where our story began. From three children running up a hillside to this lonely space, a bearded man, a pool of voices, the stalactite now within a millimeter of the stalagmite. Sarah is in her room. Victor is in his study. It is this time. Right now. Our time on Earth. And Dor’s time to be free. “What do you know about time?” Dor looked up. The old man had returned. On our calendar, it had been six thousand years. Dor gaped in disbelief. When he tried to speak, no sound came forth; his mind had forgotten the pathway to his voice. The old man stepped quietly about the cave, examining the walls with great interest. On them he saw every symbol imaginable—circle, square, oval, box, line, cloud, eye, lips—emblems for each moment Dor recalled from his life. This is when Alli threw the stone … This is when we walked to the great river … This is the birth of our son … The fi nal symbol, in the bottom corner, was the shape of a teardrop, to forever remind Dor of the moment Alli lay dying on the blanket. The end of his story. At least to him. The old man bent down and stretched out his hand. He touched that carved teardrop, and it became an actual drop of water on his fi nger. He moved to where the stalactite and stalagmite had grown to within a razor’s edge of each other. He placed
24 Publizr Home