It is June 28, 1914. Exiting a delicatessen, Gavril Princip steps up to the Gräf & Stift car and fires upon Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The bullets strike the Archduke’s jugular vein and Sophie’s abdomen, although Princip was aiming for Oskar Potiorek instead of the duchess. He tries to turn the gun on himself, but is seized by Bosnian police. Sophie has bled out, her body sprawled along the leather seating. Ferdinand passes ten minutes later.

It is February 18, 1564. The body of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni is led into the Basilica of Santa Croce for internment. Throngs of men and women hollered in despair as Il Divino was paraded down Via di Malcontenti, into a grand Hall of Arts honoring not only the death of the artist, but unknowingly, the death of the Renaissance.

There exists a place, at the intersection of time and space and light and matter. An observation post, of sorts. That is where I find myself, a small golden pod filled with buttons and cranks and pulleys that allow me to travel throughout existence.

From here, I can see everything. The mysteries of the universe and the secrets of history are mine to uncover. I have witnessed the birth and death of the universe. I have witnessed every war and genocide there has been and will ever be. I have watched men and women be born, grow, and die. Has it been only two minutes or two centuries? The passage feels no different to me.

It is August 9, 376. Emperor Valens’ army charges the barbarian camp outside Adrianople. The Roman forces, exhausted and dehydrated, are no match for the Goths, who raze the lands and unleash hordes of warriors against the imperial soldiers. Valens and his army are slaughtered, spurring on the barbarians and sparking the end of the Roman Empire.

It is May 15, 1718. James Puckle submits his patent for a single-barrel, tripod-mounted flintlock gun with a revolving cylinder. He claims it can fire nearly nine bullets every minute. Also included within the application is a variant of the cylinder that fires square bullets, to be used to convince the Muslim Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization. The future of warfare would be irrevocably changed.

My hands fly across the panel, turning knobs and flipping levers in an almost-manic manner. Historical events, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the deaths of heroes and the deaths of innocents. Countless times have I viewed these events again and again, from new angles to discover new truths; the angle at which United States President John F. Kennedy was shot; how a then-unknown prophet in Judea was executed and supposedly resurrected; what happened when an explosion completely leveled a region of forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.

It is not these events which spur me, however. That which affects the masses, which impacts culture and upheaves civilization, caught my interest at first. But patterns emerge when existence is viewed from a macro level. Assassinations and conspiracies became tedious and humdrum.

It is those moments people view as mundane that fascinate me.

It is March 29, 2020. A woman lies in a hospital bed, her body soaked with perspiration. A group, consisting of an older male and two children, gather around the bed. In the woman’s arms lies an infant child, freshly wrapped in a blanket and sleeping peacefully.

It is September 16, 1861. A boy embraces his father, squeezing his arms tightly around a gray uniform. The man ruffles the child’s hair, whispering words of relief into his ear. He stands, adjusts the rifle slung over his shoulder, and leaves the wooden cabin.

It is December 25, 1992. A teenage couple kisses under a sprig of mistletoe. By the way their lips awkwardly meet and their hands clumsily intertwine with each other’s, it is their first-such kiss. The two are unaware that this is the only such time they will embrace.

It is these which I am envious of. The joy of family, the pain of loss, the bliss of romance. I will never experience these things. All I can do is watch these moments over and over, savoring the interactions that seem to be taken for granted. These everyday events, which go unappreciated until their absence is felt.

It is … It is … It is … And in this place, flying between time, I watch all, watching from now until the end of all that is. When will that be, I wonder? Two minutes or two centuries, it all feels the same to me.