He remembers; then, Now becomes When

In a King’s glittering dome, far far away

Persistence through random latency

---

The being contemplates those recent creations and is more or less satisfied.

A wave through this app produces a myriad scenes, sparkling with potential vigour, each ready to be activated.

The being tickles each meme gently, feeling its power, then chooses the last one. It is pulled across the possible scenes, searching for affinity. Sparkles occur over one of the scenes. An attraction is found.

The meme is infused into a scene of rough stone buildings arranged in a long circle around a central Commons.

---

In the dark of the night, a dog barks, then is answered by another. A third begins to bark. One of the dogs yelps painfully. The barking ceases. Tinkling echoes from one of the open windows.

The suggestion of pale light tickles the far mountains of the valley. A silent whoosh of a winged demon passes the rear window of a house. Desperate scrabbling on hard-packed clay. A minor thud of claws into fur. The slightest squeal, marking the end of a tiny chapter of life. The whoosh passes again, flapping, gaining height, to return to its nest to add to another chapter.

The pale light begins to gain substance. Mountain peaks are outlined from behind. Their snowcaps glisten. The light marches down their backsides gaining strength, then erupts past their shoulders to fill the sky with a swath of orange broken only by pastel blue streaks of clouds.

In the hamlet, a cock crows his dominance. Another begs to disagree. Shuffling of leather soles, and doors are clumped. Pails-full of swill are sloshing, then emptied into troughs. Cattle rise from sleep; they exhale and snort under their weight. Calves thump their mothers for milk; swine grunt through the trough then are shoved away by others, finding solace by pushing against wooden fence rails smoothed with a thousand pushes. The fields beyond beckon.

This hamlet awakens. Chamber pots are emptied from second-storey windows onto the well-trod clay in front of the houses.

From the stone house farthest away from the sun, still partly in the shadows of the other houses, young Gorman emerges. He adjusts his leather cloak and his wide-brimmed hat. He tightens the handle on his broad-bladed wooden shovel. Girding his loins, Gorman proceeds with his rounds. Shoveling the brown stuff that has appeared below most windows, pushing across the wetted clay sidewalk, down one side of the Commons, then back up the other.

His pattern is to make piles at every fifth house so that the filth he pushes does not accumulate, thereby scraping a brown streak. Woe be the Mucker who leaves a slippery mess before the house of a higher caste. For that crime, and perhaps out of dark whimsy, the aggrieved resident will wait until the Mucker is below, then empty their chamber pot over him. Hence the leather cloak and wide-brimmed hat.

Later, Gorman will do his rounds with a narrower shovel and a wheel-barrow.

This morning, Gorman feels the persistence of random latency – a blurring shiver through his soul – as he approaches the house of Morbrent. A quick glance up at the window shows Gorman that their candle is lit. A shadow passes before it. Gorman continues scraping under the window then jumps back in time to witness the splash and splatter of the accumulation from a satisfyingly large deposit. He’d remembered the absence of product from the morning before. Sometimes he couldn’t remember in time. Long latency.

Gorman chances a look up to see young Morbrent grinding his teeth at the window. Gorman hurries on his rounds. They may discuss this while playing on the Commons.