AUSTRALIA BREAKS APART: THE FIRST TAKES

  Normally arid Western NSW as you will rarely see it.  Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.  David Hume ,  Of the First Principles of Government, 1768. The humans cared so much about so little.  In a hundred million years it would mean very little indeed.  As if this was the first time this had happened.  In this instance, we were skipping across centuries, not millennia, and none of the longer timespans.  Ignorance is bliss.  They gathered to protect each other.  There was an instance; a reward; a flake of snow. There was a change of administration in a country called Australia. Not the chosen one, simply a transmitter, he heard the message: "Much of the work is already done." But there was much to do; and he...

  Every story has a beginning and an end; so went the human interpretation. But it simply wasn't true. These things are infinite. There is no beginning and there is no end.  These ancient, normally arid landscapes, held something else within themselves. There had been a change of administration.  Above, as if the underwing of some great stingray, the sky barely rippled; a timespan in the millions of years.  The man showed him a fossilised tooth -- 110 million years old, he said.  How little any of it mattered.  Even he did not know why.  The army had assembled for many days on the banks of the valley opposite; imperious, determined, patient, well not very, as if the time was ripe, even if he was not; and he was most certainly not. It came in waves. They were determined. He was told there was no choice; but there was always a choice.  Not that any of it mattered, in this infinite place, as they skipped, like skipping stones across a pond, between c...