TL: How should it begin?
MH: It should begin with ‘do you remember’.
TL: Okay, yeah.Do you remember what they call this type of space? Look how the symbols fall in line across and down the surface, until the base. And then look back to the left, again at the top. See how it begins.(MH notices that it begins with the beginning. For MH, this is a blunt realization.) MH: It’s some kind of record, right? I know each symbol has its own meaning. Yeah, I think it’s a record.
TL: Each symbol changes meaning depending on what falls on either side of it. So, like, this one here doesn’t mean the same thing as it does over there. What is it recording?
MH: Itself.(TL and MH pause. Side by side, they each meditate on their own subjective experience of the passing of time. First in Days. Then Hours. Then Minutes. Then Seconds. Perplexed, they privately dread the parting conclusion they know is coming in the bottom line.) TL: It’s an architecture for a history.
MH: A narrative.
TL: Yeah, a story.(TL flashes a painful smile.) MH: But it’s kind of also a way of looking back to see what’s next.
TL: A crystal ball.
MH: Maybe the pieces of one. This is just a description of a moment.TL: The whole thing?MH: Yeah. But don’t you think its awkward placed here like this? It’s completely out of context. What is it about societies and their compulsive need to self-document?(TL silently agrees. TL now sees an artefact broken from its intended purpose; a song and dance man perpetually performing in the prison of a former self.) TL: It’s endemic…MH: To a society? Is it?TL: Yeah. Or I think it’s at least endemic to the organization of time. Which is- wow look… we’ve walked through a few thousand years in an hour and a half. How is that possible?MH: It’s because they flatten it out like this. Sure, we ‘feel’ the dual satisfaction of having lived and died in every room, but in reality all we’ve done is tippy-toed the perimeter of a mostly absent building. But maybe we missed something? Should we go back? Where did we begin?(Dazed, TL slowly looks up at an illuminated exit sign. TL doesn’t remember.)

TL: I don’t remember.