(set: $cycle to 0)
(set: $cycle2 to 0)
Here is |grass>[a broad green of sweet English grass]; at the bottom of the hill |phrase>[a big white tent].
|combo>[(display: "When")].
The others are gathering there. There is a lot of laughter, considering. But you can just stand here and watch and wait until you are [[ready to join them]].
(click-replace: ?phrase)[(display: "Tent")]
(click-replace: ?grass)[(display: "Underfoot")]
(set: $cycle to (it + 1) % 3)(if: $cycle is 0)[a big white tent](else-if: $cycle is 1)[a chapel of grey stone](else-if: $cycle is 2)[a partly excavated ruin](click-replace: ?phrase)[(display: "Tent")](replace: ?combo)[(display: "When")]
(set: $cycle2 to (it + 1) % 3)(if: $cycle2 is 0)[a broad green of sweet English grass](else-if: $cycle2 is 1)[a wide street, almost a highway](else-if: $cycle2 is 2)[a hillside of sweet prickly bushes](click-replace: ?grass)[(display: "Underfoot")](replace: ?combo)[(display: "When")]
From a distance there are some you recognize and some you don't. They'll be drawing legacies.
It might be awkward if you were there watching.
Better arrive late.
(click-append: "recognize")[ (the girl with the sideways grin, who surpassed your mentorship long ago)]
(click-append: "don't")[ (the man with the beard and the backpack; the two little boys)]
(click-append: "late.")[ Now? [[Now]]. ]
No one looks at you ghosting in. They've got the pieces of you that have any mass.
Though it surprises you who has laid claim to |thing>[what].
(click-append: "mass")[
– hopefully no one picked up the piece with all the jagged edges (click-append: "edges")[
– but the mercury-glass bottle with the restless words inside, your christening gift (click-append: "gift")[
– the chatelaine of keys to all the closets you're meant to inventory, though there are a lot of linens unaccounted-for (click-append: "unaccounted-for")[
– the illuminated duty book with its gilt task pages and the tiny peasants in red and blue (click-append: "blue")[
– the chart of all the spur-shaped migrant bones in our throats that make us speak so incomprehensibly to one another, incomplete, it took you decades to draw even as much as is sketched in here (click-append:"sketched in here")[.
[[They'll take care of each other. They have the technology]](replace: ?thing)[whom]]]]]]]
(if: $cycle2 is 0 and $cycle is 0)[August, with the ducks on the river and cider in the glass](else-if: $cycle2 is 0 and $cycle is 1)[Late February, with a drizzle on the memorial cross](else-if: $cycle2 is 0 and $cycle is 2)[Roman mosaic tiles, and flowers trying to grow into the borders](else-if: $cycle2 is 1 and $cycle is 0)[The literary festival, the truckloads of books](else-if: $cycle2 is 1 and $cycle is 1)[The Lenten air that smells of incense, of ash, of the words of the Great Litany](else-if: $cycle2 is 1 and $cycle is 2)[A building that was never rebuilt, after the war. As a reminder](else-if: $cycle2 is 2 and $cycle is 0)[Crete, the party for the opening of the raki still; rough clear fiery drink for all](else-if: $cycle2 is 2 and $cycle is 1)[A Byzantine relic, tiny windows and the gleaming icons](else-if: $cycle2 is 2 and $cycle is 2)[The bounds of a temple, the turds of goats on the ground, and the herm where once there were crossroads]
sleep now