With a desultory glance around he mutters, “Cripes, not again.”

A cloud bank rolls in from the East and rolls back again. Three rats scuttle across a rooftop across the street, nearly at eye level, only to inch backward the way they came. The gentle circle of gulls over what he could only presume was a garbage scow on the nearby river turns this way then that, a mesmerizing ring of filthy aviation.

Time is breathing, a pause in the relentless stream of cause and effect.

In a moment, or no time at all, he notices the blood from his cuts, how it courses out and in along with the temporal pulse. Eyes closed he curses a slew of gods in rapid succession, settling in the end for one.

Eyes still closed, for one cannot see a being who is everywhere and nowhere, he calls out with indignation and bitterness, “Mother! How many times…”

“Silence.” The word is not spoken. It is. Outside of time, its temporary ebb and flow, the command simply exists.

He can naught but obey. He has obeyed. He will obey.