The war machine – reduced by one technician.

A lucky heifer – not slaughtered.

The axis of the earth – shifted. By about 13 feet, measured at the poles, to compensate the weight of melting ice redistributed.

Factor in a shrinkage of arable land, a decline in drinkable water, and the increasing burden of overpopulation.

All in all, it's not a pointillistic picture. Blobs of Artificial Intelligence, interplanetary colonization, and quantum computers diffuse it. Some pieces of the inchoate puzzle drift into partial order. Fossil fuel invisibly exceeds its caloric output, heating the entire planet. History reminds us that it will repeat itself for as long as the world wide caste system is in force. Wars are won and lost, lost and won, won and lost . . . to what end?

Suppose that in failing to rally, humans render the planet uninhabitable. Some will have said, “Hang in there, it could be worse.”

In the interval, looking through a telescope, see a supernova explosion creating countless worlds. It doesn't end. The bleaker human story is replaced by a much larger one, just as an individual mind can leave limitations behind. Forgetting the little self then, not only does the universe remain, it's all there is. And ultimately, even that is forgotten.

So far as we know, this planet is the sole locus of human life. Without a self to forget, would the universe be realized?

No use guessing.

Is it just there? More explanations are given than for the HOLLYWOOD hills sign. On the hill are some microwave towers. It's something to do with the wind. Films and television shows have the sign getting destroyed, illustrating the ruin of Los Angeles, perhaps the whole state of California. Yes, this verges on it. And the teetering? It's not a wind farm. There is an air of mystery.

Neither is it the flight line at Moffett Field, with its definite markers. And back a short distance from that, across the freeway, is the golf course, green and smooth with sand traps for the unlucky in a sort of dreamland. Yes, that would be the proper stage setting. Orion sub hunters swoop low over it on the way to the markers.

A curious vulture glides in silence overhead, not looking for a meal. Something came to life down there. It was unplanned, the markers still there. A subtle breeze.

The tower whistles, almost inaudibly. It would be in the dusk of a purple rose, down into the shadows. What happens on the golf course ought to stay there. But the sense of it shifts to the flight of a bumble bee, wiggling free, and all the sense of it teetering. Pollinate from flower to flower, with a stinking outhouse in between. Scents and markers of a single flight, the chemical murder of children, polluted rivers under overheated air, torrential rain. Impossible to overfly the golf course without discovering that the sign was an understatement.

In our backyard is a breeze that cannot be touched, yet visibly moving through the trees. And a dandelion bloom – is it passive? It has inherited motion at a lesser speed. There are quicker ones.

The doves of our acquaintance arrive for their afternoon trip to the seed feeder, landing on the fence beside. We sometimes share thoughts, with that quality of the wind, ever fresh. Distant birds are heard, from where? Spring is here, skirting a jocular turn of mind. They face each other on the fence rail and go beak to beak, which I've not seen them do before. Suddenly they're beaking and no, not fighting. They never do.

He mounts her from behind, and they're done in a few seconds. In so many years it's the first time I've seen this. The dandelion scatters its seeds.

Untethered thought includes all at once, everything in one piece, untouched yet right before our eyes. There is no word for it or the chime of a bell, unheard yet floating through, the mind becoming one insensible substance.