Now, the old man looked backwards. And, then he looked forward. The past was much more crowded than the future ever could be. Yet, the past and future curiously weighed about the same to him. Very curious. His memories from decades of living collapsed into a seemingly brief narrative. Events compressed, overlapping, abbreviated. The future stretched out before him, endlessly; although, in normal time-the time of the world-it would not be very long at all.

The old man lived in a very old house, a house much older even than the old man. There were mice in the basement and at least one ghost on the third floor. The old man could no longer go up or down the stairs, so he did not mind the mice, unless and until they ventured upstairs in search of food, and he and the ghost left each other alone. The old man also had a walled garden in which successive families of grey squirrels romped continuously. During the summer, there were flowers galore, a continuing parade. Early bloomers, midsummer bloomers, late bloomers and some simply confused.