Pass Times

How long does the pass last, how many passes is that? The swiping wipes the slate, the swipe moves the page, the moving finger having written is no longer part of time.

I realise that information, once discrete and chunked, is now indeed a flow, a river, a torrent like the one which rampaged into the Mediterranean Basin when Gibraltar gave way. There is no thinking about it, and even the coasts are drowned.

Many centuries later, Phlebas the Phoenician learnt something about that. Very, very briefly did he know it. And then, it was all pearls and coral.