Second after second, minute after minute, year after year, generation after generation.

Chronology: a sequential arrangement of events ordered by befores and afters. Ours, Time—ongoing, restless, relentless, and powerful.

[A milliner triumphs—he is a fashion icon.]

Trapped. We are helots, slaves of time. This tireless cycle lords over us. However, I will not bow to its gasconade. Will we inosculate?

[Come with me, and please don't buy that hat.]

How shall we overcome? I suppose I don’t know. How does one escape the clutches of one such as Time?

Our strategy will be simple, for we are simpleminded folk. We cannot lose sight of the goal; there is no room for distraction. Yes, our way shall be markedly spartan.

[Alas, Time continues. And nothing under the sun can save us. Proof: the verdigris on a Clarkson roof.]

• Helot: a serf or slave.
• Milliner: someone who designs, makes, or sells women’s hats.
• Gasconade: boastful talk. verb, to boast extravagantly.
• Inosculate: to join or unite.
• Spartan: lacking in comforts; marked by self-discipline.
• Verdigris: a green or greenish-blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper and consisting of one or more basic copper acetates.