Of all the seconds that tick the whole year through, of all the seconds
that have slipped onward marking the beat of time since time was
loosed, there is one, one brief moment, steeped in magic and heavy with
oblivion, that sometimes lingers in the soul of man, annihilating space
and time. If, at the feet of God, a year is a second passed unnoted,
this magic second, afloat on the tide of time, moves on and on till,
caught in the vortex of some life's whirl, it sinks into the soul of a
being near to death.
And in that soul the magic second glows and lingers, stretching into
minutes, hours, days--aye, days and days, till, if the magic hold, the
calm years crowd on one by one; and yet it all is but a second--that
magic moment that comes on the tide of time--that came to me and was
caught up in my life's whirl as I fell, dropping there between sky and
earth.
And so that magic moment grew to minutes, to hours; and when my body,
whirling, pitching, struck and lay flung out on the earth, the magic
second grew until the crystal days fell from my life, as beads, one by
one, fall from the rosaries that saints tell kneeling.
Those days of a life that I have lived, those years that linger still
aglow in the sun behind me, dim yet splendid as dust-dimmed jewels,
they also have ended, not in vague night, but in the sunburst of
another second--such a second as ticks from my watch as I write, quick,
sharp, joyous, irrevocable! So, of that magic second, or day, or year,
I shall tell--I, as I was, standing beside my body flung there across
the earth.
I looked at my body, lying in a heap, then turned to the sand cliff
smiling.
"Sweetheart!" I called.
But she was already at my side.
We walked on through fragrant pastures, watching the long shadows
stretch from field to field, speaking of what had been and of all that
was to be. It was so simple--everything was clear before us. Had there
been doubts, fears, sudden alarms, startled heartbeats?
If there had been, now they were ended forever.
"Not forever," said Sweetheart; "who knows how long the magic second
may last?"
"But we--what difference can that make?" I asked.
"To us?"
"Yes."
"None," said Sweetheart decisively.
We looked out into the west. The sun turned to a mound of cinders; the
hills loomed in opalescent steam.
"But--but--your shadow!" said Sweetheart.