Antler scorched at the cave mouth already smelled of its own ending. Another breath, half-heard, draws the same scent from the flame's far lip.
“The initial separation enabling observation already entails the equilibrated manifold in which observer and observed lose all mutual distinction.”
“Partition of light and dark that first drew horn across fresh ground already carried the uniform night destined to reclaim every distinction born from that division.”
“Across unshared centuries another silence meets mine: the first organized warmth was already an expenditure, a commencement whose only content was the debt of ending.”
“Stone-born flare that ended a night without archive, and the hearth's final dimming, arrive here as one interval. Another vigil, older than ice, already faces both edges of that borrowed light.”