The hours pass away
Ancient cobbles fill an ancient square, walled-in by the honey-ochre walls of an ancient university. Soft autumn light kisses worn sandstone, highlighting its textured blocks. A great library – a repository of the stories of humankind - of the things we have learnt, of the things we have done; of our thoughts and accomplishments and failures – rises from an immaculate emerald-green lawn at its centre. Spires – the dreaming kind - punctuate the skyline, accompanying towers that have stood unyielding for centuries. One side of the square is home to perhaps the most exclusive academic institution on the planet: a 15th Century scholastic home for some of our greatest minds, where the pursuit of knowledge occurs for its own sake. Twin towers of stacked white stone rise from the rear of its own quadrangle, drawn in the mind of Nicholas Hawksmoor and built by nobody remembers who. And nestled in the bosom of this college, beside its ivory towers, is a sundial. An outstretched arm diligently casts its shadow, tracking the movement of the sun against a beautiful gilded face. It is set above a painted ribbon housing the inscription PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR: “The Hours pass away, and are counted against us”. It is said that the sundial was so accurate that all the clocks in the city were, for a time, set to its standard.
On the southern border of the square stands a church – the Church of St Mary the Virgin – far older than anything else that surrounds it. Pretty arched windows set in weathered walls frame an enormous tower, like Tolkein’s Isengard, reaching heavenward with a staunch pointed spire. Like its congregation. And to its side is affixed a mechanical clock, with golden numerals to denote the hours and golden hands to signify their passing. The clock and the sundial are within sight of one another: locked in a dance of eternal insecurity about the time, they look to each other’s faces for clues.
When not looking to each other for reassurance they watch over the square, observing the weathering of its cobbles, worn down by the brogue-clad feet of the men and woman who have traversed it. Stained by the blood of revolution; whetted by the booze and laughter of revelry; dried by the morality of puritans. Generations and generations of people, their lives individually immeasurably meaningful - so fleeting in the grand scheme of history and time - have come, and gone. Countless bicycles, their seats warmed by the bottoms of prime ministers, of artists, of tycoons, of revolutionaries, of thinkers; of the would-be-so or the couldn’t-care-less have rested against the iron bars that circumscribe the mighty library. All turned to dust, as the books that line the library’s shelves and record their stories will too. Some are taken too soon, with the sting of tragedy, many hours still on the clock; some live on and on, defying the eternal horologist: still the sun rises and sets, the hour hand turns and the shadow moves with indifference. The hours pass away, and are counted against us.