Hourglass: A Dream

I met a man meandering along the shore. ‘How far is it?’ he wanted to know.

‘Depends on where you are going’, said I.

‘Just wandering’, he said.

‘Then, you are already there.’ said I.

‘To the end of the beach is what I meant. How far is that?’ he replied.

‘About a mile,’ I said, ‘but you are headed the wrong way.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I started my walk at the beginning and I am walking to the end and back again. You are headed where I began. The end is back the way you are coming from.’

‘No.’ he said to me, ‘you started at one end and I at the other end. They are both ends.’

‘If that’s the case, then where is the beginning? How can there be two ends? One must be a beginning.’ I reasoned. ‘You can’t start at the end and end at the end. You must start at the beginning and go towards the end.’

‘I thought you said that you were walking back again,’ he said with a smile.

‘Yes, I am.’ I replied.

‘Well then, when you get back there, you will be at the end of your walk. Right?’

‘You mean the beginning is the end?’ I asked.

‘No, the end is the beginning is what I mean.’ he said.

‘See,’ I said, ‘you are headed to the beginning and I am headed to the end.’

‘But I plan to walk back again too,’ he said, ‘ so I shall also end up at my beginning, just as I began, according to you, at the end.’

‘Unless we stop right here and go into that little beach bar for a beer,’ I suggested.

‘Does it have a name?’ he asked, although I think he knew already.

‘Yes,’ I played along, ‘it does.’

‘What is it called then?’ he asked.

‘The Water’s Edge,’ I answered.

‘A beer it is then,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy the first and you can buy the last. We’ll see what shows up in between.’

‘We can talk of flotsam and jetsam while we wait,’ said I. ‘Leslie is my name,’ I said, reaching out my hand in greeting.

‘Lewis,’ he said, ‘glad to meet you.’ He had a firm grip.

Then, I awoke; released from the clutches of the sandman.

600 million people are now connected to the Internet. 1 billion people have access. Over 100 million websites with more than 1 billion pages of information. WOW!

Years ago, someone postulated that 1 million monkeys typing away on 1 million typewriters would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.

Thanks to the Internet, we now know that this is not true.