A Beginning

A beginning? These things always need somewhere to begin, a place where we can find ourselves. A place before something like this came along and changed all our worlds. Sometimes it is easy to find some instant in the stream of time, around which, and from which, all new events flow, like a large boulder breaking free from the mountain and rolling down to splash heavily into the stream, sometimes diverting the course of that stream completely.

Other times, though, it is hard to say just what event caused the stream to change its course. It could be something as small as a twig being trapped between two stones, which has little perceptible effect on the flow of the stream at first. However, as time passes, that twig captures some more flotsam, then some more, and so on and on, until one day there is a blockage, a natural dam, which the stream can no longer ignore.