ACT 1: THE EXPOSITION
“So, that’s everything. Eternally live the Hegemony” says the Scientist, yawning at the dawn of a new day.
“Amazing. I stayed up all night reading the tablet you gave me” replied the Traveler, “but … how can you be so bold to state that your empire will last eternally?”
“hmm… it’s fate. Well, for a more scientific answer, this is restricted information, but seeing that you’ve been hibernating for an unspecified amount of time, it should be fine telling you. Have you ever heard of time travel?”
“Well, at the time of my cyto-statis, which was about …,” he thought for a moment, “a millennia of millennia ago, we were just discovering the dimension of time. Now … ,“ he hesitated, “though I have my guesses, I’m not certain.”
The scientist explains, “time flows like a stream, linearly, from one infinitesimal moment to the next. There is only one time stream– whoever thought that there may be other streams, or time lines, is suffering from a hopeful delusion. Well, perhaps if there are other universes with other time lines, but even with all of time this search has not yielded any fruit.”
“If time flows linearly, how can there be time travel?”
“The explicits are completely forbidden knowledge, but a brief summary is that 2 points on a line superimpose– which is impossible, but the math is wonky– allowing an entity to move, as if they were walking, into a moment in our past or future but now in their present. “
“What? So simple? What about time paradoxes?”
“Well, that just shows you didn’t read the tablet in enough depth, but I suppose that the intricate nature of time traveling would be lost on a primate like you. Heheh.”
“...”
“When one time travels, they transcend linear Causality, or ‘temporal Causality’. Freedom, if you will. When their past self, which I’ll label as a “Iteration”, is affected by time travel, either by themselves or someone else, these effects will affect the Iteration but will never affect the time traveler after their time travel that stopped said Iteration.”
“What? So a time-traveler is independent– not affected by– the time-travels of anybody?”
“Basically, yes. There’s the age old hypothe*tical about ‘what if you killed your grandfather?’ Which–”
“Quite morbid of an example–”
“As I was saying, which will indeed kill your grandfather, a premature death, and result in you never existing. However, that is only the you of that Iteration. If you were not a time traveler, you would never have existed. If you were a time traveler and Traveled before the temporal causality or your own causality that resulted in your death, ‘you’, the post time traveler, would still exist.”
“What? So time traveling gives you immortality?”
“Indeed. That is why we call these travelers “Transcendents”, as they have overcome the wall of simple Causality– the environment in which events cause other events. However, they are not truly immortal, since they can die, either by their own body failing or by being killed in their ‘Present Iteration’, their current, present ‘self’ before time traveling.”
The Traveler took some time to think. He then said, “Amazing. But this still seems a bit confusing– how is history, knowledge, existence–” he hesitated, and then continued, “and fate, how are these concepts changed by time travel? Is there some sort of fundamental explanation for everything?”
“Yeah, for your prehistoric civilization, time travel might be a novel concept, but for the Hegemony, time travel has always existed.”
“What?” the traveler exclaimed.
“And I suppose it is my Duty to explain the glory of the Hegemony to you, whom now belongs to our vassal state. Have you ever heard of the Legend of the Butterfly Keeper?”
A long time ago, there lived the Keeper of the Butterflies, the caretaker for the Emperor’s butterflies, for this emperor loved the transformation of the ugly into the beautiful. When the air became cold and the butterfly eggs were laid, there was one egg with colorful and mystical patterns. So beautiful was the egg that the Emperor in his greed could not wait until the air warmed, and so it ordered the Butterfly keeper to hatch it the very next day. ‘But sir,’ the Keeper protested, ‘that’s impossible!’ But the Emperor was domineering and greedy, and ordered, ‘be it both of you awaken yourselves, or both of you will sleep forever!’
And so, faced with this conundrum, the Keeper could only turn to his side-passion, research into the flow of time. In his free time, for the management of butterflies was a challenging but semi-automatic job– they fed and moved on their own– he had analyzed time as a man wooed a woman. And as time passed, he chased after it, until finally, with diligence and perhaps discipline, he embraced it, and with an exchange of secrets they became one. However, forceful were the duties given by the Emperor, and impossible were its demands. Faced with a choice, the Keeper could only devote all his powers to the egg, to the point that he had nothing left. Yet it was not enough. Realizing his fate if this continued, the Keeper lamented. However, time was kind upon seeing his haggard face, and it bestowed the Keeper its grace– time separate from her.
And so, the Keeper created the first time machine, and both left time.
With his recently created creation, the Keeper, with the seed in hand, commanded the currents of time to stop and capsize, moving backwards into itself until it could no longer. With time, he waited a many days, and then with a farewell from her, time, he used the machine once more. Again and again he repeated these iterations, always seeing the same but different sights, always accepting the same but different thoughts, always waiting as the same but different time, with a grin on her face that mirrored each of his own, repeatedly flowed past again. The Keeper, too, did not stay still, for he had to find the rare reagents to hatch the egg, from the mantle of the heart of the mountains to the seamen of the pillars of the sea. And so, once the Keeper reunited with time one last time, the egg hatched. The many instances of the Keeper, each having always had the same time but still growing more haggard, vanished. And a beautiful Butterfly emerged.
The next day, the Keeper presented the Butterfly to the Emperor. The Emperor surveyed it, and exclaimed, ‘How Distasteful! This is not what I wanted!’ His aides whispered to him, ‘But Emperor, it matches the prediction. From this egg only this Butterfly could have emerged.’ And yet still the Emperor, in his rage, frothed at the mouth, and with his authority, killed the Butterfly. But it lived. In his madness, the Emperor hoped to salvage his face, and so he captured the Keeper. Though the Keeper lived, he was kept, and by orders he kept seeking for a Butterfly in the image of the Emperor.
However, it was all for naught. At this moment, earth erupted, the seas died, and the world imploded. And the Empire was no more.
ACT 2: THE ARGUMENT
As the Scientist finished the Legend, the Traveler smiled and gasped, “Wow. What a story.”
The Scientist nodded his head in vigorous agreement, excitedly stating, “according to legend, this myth originated from the advisor to the founding father of the Empire. Of course, that doesn’t make sense, as the head of state has always been and will always be an AI formed of a mixture of the strongest humans, but still, it’s a good tall tale for warning children about the dangers of time travel.”
The Traveler, confused, sputtered, awkward noises coming from his mouth before he finally said, “But… while I see that the Keeper time-traveled, can you explain the specifics?”
The Scientist smirked, “Well, understandably you still don’t get it. But fear not, it also took the Empire a bit of experimenting to confirm the profoundness of the legend.” The Scientist thought for a moment, then started, “Continuing our lesson from earlier, many people think of time as a stream. This, while sort of accurate for non-time-travelers, is not entirely correct; time is more of like a book. There exists a book of all things, where information about all of time is infintely condensed; a book whose size spans from one end of this universe to the other. Infinite, as in a perfect record of totality; condensed, like hyperlinks to hyperlinks, pockets that store pockets, and atoms with universes inside them; linear, as a story reads. The words that define existences span their allocated space, and those with consciousness seem like worms, crawling or desperately wiggling through the book– existences connected to their own self but still constantly changing, or inkblots, permeating through the pages, affecting those around them in their path forward while leaving traces behind.”
“A book where time holds all things accountable?”
“In fact, this book of uncountable pages, condensed to the point where pages merge together, reverting back to wood, form the mythological ‘tree of knowlege’ or ‘string of Fate’. Our senses simply access different parts of this book, as all information about space has already been written. In this sense, we are all readers, traversing through the story in the form of bookworms, made of ink, sensing, grasping, and making new ink. The inkblots left behind our ceasing wriggle forward serve as the residue of our existence, forming the words on what we comprehend as pages.”
The Traveler immersed himself in this image, but then said, “if this is a book, who wrote it? And if it is already finished, what about the people– ourselves– inside of it?”
The Scientist smirked, then responded, “at least you’re smart enough to ask the fundamental questions. Obviously, the Hegemony wrote this book. The Hegemony started from the very Beginning and lasts until the very end, and rules all in between. As the hegemony, it authors the lives of all.”
“What? That’s ridiculous–”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, as that would be heresy. Secondly, a correct deduction of the starting point of fate. As the Book is finished, fate is finalized. The Book is perfect, so everything in it satisfies Causality. As such, the actions of ourselves yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all fixed, no matter our beliefs nor will. It was fated that you awoke from your time-capsule, and it was fated that we have this conversation.”
“Does such ‘fate’ involve time travel as well?”
“Of course not! Why do you think time travel exists? It is all for the purpose of changing fate– changing the history that Causality, the fundamental forces of cause and effect, acts upon, resulting in new fates, better fates. Time Travelers are the result of when the bookworms of the Book molt into unique Butterflies, ones that can fly above the Book to where they wish to go.”
“Well, suppose that time travel can change fate–”
“--which it can–”
“-- then why is the knowledge of time travel forbidden? Anyone should have the power to change their–”
The Scientist interrupts with a laugh. “It’s not just forbidden, it’s completely banned!”
“WHAT?” the Traveler exclaimed.
The Scientist, ceasing his laughter, raised a proposition, “suppose that anybody with the resources and will could time-travel, as it was in the Age of Chaos. Then, as they transcended the Book and thus Causality and Fate, to remake the future into one of their own vision, they could go some amount of time backwards. This then, however, would lead to the fated birth of new time-travelers, ones whom disagreed with the vision of the original time-traveler. Perhaps these new time-travelers would be Iterations of themselves, even. As the only way to kill a time-traveler is to kill their present Iteration, and the only way to prevent their resurrection is to kill all past Iterations. If the Book already has the information of this time-traveler, then one way of murder would be to erase them from this existence– that is, to kill them. With this new edit, the future pages of the Book would all automatically correct, in infinite totality, writing a new history, one where the time traveler had never existed. And so, the wars of the Age of Chaos, spanning infinitely, raged. Time wet and re-wet their ink, and the Book, in perfection, wrote and erased and edited what was, is, and will be, with only time-travelers able to remember what had changed.
It was, in this world of chaos, that the Primordial One thought of the common man, those who were not fated to time-travel, and decided to travel to the very Beginning and fix the chaotic nature of history and memory and existence. By banning time travel from the very beginning and establishing the Hegemony to enforce his will, he was able to destroy any new time travelers that could have been born by new scenarios. Of course, the rebels, believing in the nonsense of ‘free will’ when it created a Chaos spanning the infinite time, refused his order. They all time-traveled back to the Beginning and revolted against the Primordial One’s will. So too, did the iterations of the Primordial one, as the will of the Primordial One was so strong that, no matter his Iteration, all believed in his vision. The war of an instant erupted, and an uncountable number of Iterations swarmed and re-swarmed each other, leading to an ever-expanding battlefield. The wings of the clash of wills, all at this instance, resonated in a Big Bang. After a glorious battle, the One remained victorious, and conveniently all present Iterations of all time-travelers were dead. With the establishment of the Hegemony at the Beginning, Chaos dissipated into nothing, the Book stopped fluttering its ink, and all became calm. And so, forever the Primordial one and his Iterations reign. Long Live the Hegemony.”
ACT 3: THE CONTRADICTION
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The Traveler saw this perspective, and he refused. “That is ridiculous! To control all of fate, do you think of yourself as a god?”
The Scientist smirked, but then thought and said, “Well, I am not the Primordial One, but yes, to me, the Hegemony is a god.”
The Traveler sputtered a response, “Ridiculous! Ridiculous… Ridiculous!! You would rather the stagnation of everything, suppressing everybody to the dark ages, instead of using time-travel to create a Singularity of human Happiness? This is nonsense! What is this idiocracy to determine the fate of everyone?”
“We are fate. Fate is us.”
“And who are you to hold a monopoly over the ability to time-travel?”
“We are peace. We are war. We are the walls providing shelter. We are the nukes whom erase.”
“And who are you to delete all those who dare to challenge the heavens– challenge their own fate– for themselves, their allies, and their humanity? Who are you to poison the fundamental Desire of improvement for conscious beings?”
“We are the Monarch Butterflies that rule over all. Long Live the Hegemony”
“Impossible. If I can never interpret the inkblot of your existence, and you never mine, then we are at an impasse. And for us, one of us must die.”
“Your words are as ignorant as your hope. But are we truly incompatible? Surely you do not realize the vast greatness of the Hegemony–”
“I believe in total free will. It is a natural right, no, a fundamental necessity for a being of Consciousness to be able to choose their own fate. I reject your worldview.”
“Then let us war.”
ACT 4: REVELATIONS
In an instant, a multitude of individuals resembling the Scientist appeared into the room, each carrying a weapon aimed at the Traveler. Regardless, so too did a multitude of individuals resembling the Traveler.
“Impossible!” The Scientist– the original Scientist– yelled. “How do you know how to Molt the Cocoon?”
“I’ve always known. My questions were not a reflection of my own ignorance but a mirror to see your own thoughts. And I will now shatter your facade of arrogance.”
With a mocking voice, the Traveler explained, “All beings are born and all beings will die. However, for a time traveler, these can take on different forms. When they time-travel, they create a new Iteration. For these Iterations, birth is the time that the time-traveler traveled to, and death is the time when the time-traveler traveled again, a travel that will create a new Iteration. No matter what new fates affect the Iteration, unless the Iteration time travels, it will always appear into existence as the same existence at the same time and die, perhaps changed, at its pre-ordained, fated time. This creates a ‘cocoon’ of an existence where an Iteration, a trapped ‘time-traveler’ that can supposedly change fate, is trapped by their own actions and fated life-time. Some see this cocoon as just a residue of their past and their present Iteration as the one true self, but warriors see these cocoons as the best potential allies– past versions of yourself with the potential to escape fate. And so, to molt the cocoon means to travel (present Iteration) to past Iterations and resist the will of the world, the will that resists time travel, to create a new time-travel ally.”
“How did you know!?”
“Though my moniker is not a Scientist, that just means that I have gone above it.”
Rage filled the Scientist’s eyes, and he quivered.
The Traveler continued, “In fact, you have not even escaped fate, and you know it.”
So much rage filled the Scientist’s eyes that it condensed into ice, and he froze. He spoke, “you dare.”
The Traveler explained, “We have been taking about fate, but fate comes in many forms. There’s ‘external’ fate, the ‘conventional fate’, where external factors, such as biology, childhood, the environment, and others, influence one’s future (and all futures), and ‘internal’ fate, deemed ‘destiny’, where internal factors, such as the psyche, personality, and the belief-attitude-behavior complex, influence one’s future (and all futures). As worms in the Book, commoners suffer under all fate. As Butterflies that can create chaos, time-travelers have escaped and controlled fate but are trapped by their destiny. They have freedom from temporal Causality, but they exist as themselves.
You in your arrogance dare to call yourself a god when you have not even escaped yourself.”
The Scientist attacked the Traveler, willing him to die, but the Traveler dodged. And though it took more than mere moments for the human mind to read these words, in time this confrontation of words was just mere moments. In the span of these moments the Scientist multiplied, but the Traveler multiplied faster. Just as there are infinities greater than other infinities, so too did the Traveler overwhelm the Scientist.
The Scientist screeched, “Impossible!”
The Traveler explained, “You can not comprehend how you will lose. In exchange for your words, I offer mine: do you know how to time travel?”
The Scientist cried, “Of course! I’m not an imbecile!”
The Traveler explained, “Then, you know that it is the result of technology that is powered by the fuel of will, willpower.”
“Even grade schoolers know this! Technology is the foundation of human power, and the wings on which humans ascend! Distribute the wings, and there’s chaos. Keep the wings, and dominate the worms below!”
“Well, technology doesn’t offer solutions in the truest sense– solutions are the result of planning of the consciousness– technology makes the path to these solutions more efficient. As such, time-machines offer the manifestation of willpower, but it is will that commands this body of machine; it is the evolution in will that results in the time-travel. Your will is to molt cocoons of identical Iterations to yourself, so you have to search. My will is to molt cocoons of any Iteration, for I know my conviction to be strong enough; I do not have to search. You can only choose from your own stagnated self, while I can choose from any Iteration of myself. We are not the same.”
The Scientist looked over time and lamented, for he knew the Traveler was truthful. Yet he continued.
With one wing of his pair chopped off, the Scientist gazed at the Traveler and spoke, “You claim that I am arrogant, but so are you to mock me. You do not realize my greatness. To you, I am the Scientist who introduced you. To myself, I am this generation’s Monarch. I am the ruler of the Hegemony; I am the ruler of this world! I, as the conqueror of Butterflies, hereby decree, to my subjects, a glorious bounty to the consciousness that Erases the Traveler!” The Scientist’s voice reverberated throughout the Empire, and as such, throughout time. So too did his will, and for the first time in much time, the times changed, and the Hegemony permitted time-traveling bounty hunters.
The Traveler spoke, “you dare involve the commons, murderer of Butterflies? After banning the tools that lead to your power, you dare use those tools to keep it?”
“I am the Monarch, my subjects the subjected, my vassals the vessels.”
“The Hegemony is a cancerous poison that consumes free will to further itself”
“I am the will of the world”
The Traveler smirked, then started to laugh. He composed himself, and replied, “Your untempered will is nothing.”
The Traveler explained, “In my research, I have long thought of the problem of true free will; even with the solution of time-travel, it is only possible with those with strong wills and luck to possess the time-machine, and it fails to overcome one’s destiny. In fact, it is impossible for one to overcome one’s own destiny purely by one’s own will– that is self-defeating. One’s will is one’s destiny. This ‘one’ can be one individual, a group, or everyone. Consciousness can not overcome that which was destined for it. This is the Greater Book, one that records all Books that could be and have been and are, one where even Butterflies are just fancier inkblots that from high above, seem no different from the worms it came from.
Faced with this challenge, I traversed many Iterations, saw many things that are no longer, and longer and longer contemplated the Greater Book, the Greater Prison. Around and around I flew as a Butterfly over the longitude of time, looking for words that would free me from this destiny. Then, I saw it. If time travel freed us from fate, then so too will the investigation into time free us from destiny. Looking at time, I realized that it was continuous– book pages crushed so close together it formed a tree. I was so used to it that it seemed normal, but after refreshing my mind, it is quite strange; how can we be certain of what time we travel to if time is continuous? Let’s say I travel back an hour from now. An hour and how many minutes? Seconds? Milliseconds? These parameters are usually defined through will, but consciousness can never grasp infinity, so there will always be some variability in the time-destination. Interesting. What’s more, this variability– randomness– will actually influence the development of the Iteration. A few minutes before the Iteration arrived, perhaps, though rare, a life-changing event would have taken place, changing one’s destiny.
This is the key to transcending destiny– accepting randomness. Ironically, this seems like the action of the powerless accepting their fate, but such is the nature of challenges: the very actions that strike us down are chances for us to rise above. Each random event, and truly random, as the nature of continuous time, discretely pinpointed by willpower and technology, can only be seen as random, is a challenge, a chance to temper myself and emerge with wings stronger than ever before.
And if this is the way, then it follows that I can strengthen myself best in this new field by maximizing randomness. So that’s what I did– Each moment resolved meaning the movement to a new random moment, accumulating changes throughout iterations, exercising my will throughout Iterations while creating an uncountable number of Cocoons; Cocoons with the will for the molted Cocoons to molt new ones. Now, tempered wings can temper other wings, and this song of inked wind and tempered flesh resonates with itself to achieve Singularity.
You claim that the Hegemony is yours, and in a way, you are correct; the Hegemony is limited by your will, and you will never allow for it to surpass it. The infinite potential of infinite consciousnesses suppressed by one. You are One, while we are All.”
The Great Book contained all Books, and while the Book changed and changed, rewriting mighty battles over and over, the Great Book read onwards, only changing when the Traveler acted. And the Traveler acted often. Enraged with murderous desire, the Scientist prepared for the final act.
The Scientist spoke, “I am the Primordial One.” He declared, “I invoke the inheritance.”
ACT 5: DISTRIBUTION
The Traveler laughed, “So, you finally admitted it? I’ve known for a long time”
“If so, then what is my inheritance?”
“That, I admit, I do not know.”
“Then you know nothing.” The Scientist declared with ice in his voice, “I am the First time-traveler– the one who developed, created, and used the First time-machine. All machines are copied from my design, and all time-travelers mock my will. Long Live the Hegemony.”
“Interesting. But wrong.”
The Scientist ignored the Traveler, “From the time before the Origin of Time, before Causality and time became one, there was chaos where time did not read together– did not flow together– with Causality. Without each other, neither had meaning. And it was in this place the Emperor ruled, and from his inheritance, along with the waters of timely Causality, grew the Hegemony.”
“You mean the Emperor stole a time machine from his subjects and gave it to you?”
“Such a rude description. But yes, the Emperor, the ‘will of the world’, gave me the inspiration to construct the first time machine. And it was from this machine that I ruled everything.”
The Traveler thought for a bit, and then said, “then are you admitting that your childhood Legend contains many truths?”
“Surprisingly, yes. We modified it to fit the ban, which doesn’t matter anymore … but the Emperor is the will of the World and the Keeper is Causality. I guess the commoners, whom this Legend originated from, got some lucky guesses.”
“Well, the Emperor seems like a domineering–”
“--well inherited by the Hegemony–”
“-- idiot. And what would you even be able to inherit, from such a man who wants to keep everything to himself?”
“The Emperor holds the Keeper in his grasp. The Hegemony is the master of time-travel. Now, I shall gain the power of the Keeper and be able to command Causality itself, thus erasing everything in the Great Book and starting over!”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“What?”
“You fool, your inheritance of the ‘Emperor’ has been in front of you this whole time, and, this whole time, you’ve been suppressing me– truly your destiny. I now declare myself, once again, free of you.”
“WHAT?”
The Traveler explained, “While you may have been the first to popularize the time-machine, it is false to claim that you are the only one who developed the time-machine blueprints on their own. In fact, as the number of time-travelers grows, the ‘grave of time-travelers’, the big bang, can only also grow larger. This expanding universe grows faster than you can control it, no matter how much you deny it, and in the far reaches of space, where consciousness forms (and thus willpower) but is untouched by the Hegemony, those that develop time-machines independently are born. Of these travelers, there are those that challenge themselves with time-traveling– to become a being who has the will to become flexible enough to fit in all times yet rigid enough to keep his convictions, a being born with the body of a worm but the potential of an Awakened Butterfly, can emerge. From randomness, challenge, from challenge, choice, from choice, rebirth, from rebirth, a newer being. As thus, to lose control is a way to gain control, and that is the true path of ascension to godhood”
“Impossible! I have personally killed an uncountable number of Butterflies; how can there be one that possibly defies me?”
“By chance and challenge and victory. Now, I invoke my inheritance.”
Time traveling is born from the separation of causality and time. Then, how can Butterflies be born from the Keeper and Time? Well, a being of contradiction will generally self-destruct. Of the Butterflies, the ones that were not killed in the ‘grave of time-travelers’, a large majority simply vanished from existence, either by lacking or losing the will to continue or being erased by other time-travelers. After all, while fate is the strict but fair older sister of Time, destiny is the impertinent younger sister. However, the contradiction also offers a chance of balance– a balance between accepting that which you can not control with that which you can. The weakness of the commoners is that they lack any control at all, and so die, leaving only ink behind. The hubris of time travelers is that they believe that they can control everything, and thus are controlled by destiny, leaving a more decorative ink behind. But the balance of the Awakening, the true ‘inheritance’ of a Butterfly, is to understand that one can, as a Butterfly waving their wings, create events of great magnitude only by accepting the random challenges of this world– Causality separate from time.
The Traveler, having traveled, Awakened, and from his will came intent, and that intent erased the Hegemony.
For in its place stood only the Keeper, ever appointing Butterflies, searching for one that could satisfy not him, for he was already satisfied, not the deceased Emperor, for he was arrogant, but for his lover Time, for a reunion with her was what he willed for.
The Traveler saw that it was good, but understood that it could be better. So, with the ‘inheritance’ of the wishes of the Keeper that aligned with his will, powered by the will of the World, he rewrote the nature of the Book. He split the pages, making them still infinite in size but now distinct. Time now had small gaps, making it discontinuous but still flowing.
If a complete reunion was not possible, as he had left time by his own accord, then perhaps a dance, a hug, a kiss– while they could never go back, they could go forward…
A discontinuous time now had to make predictions, by guessing what may have happened in the discontinuity. The power to ‘guess’ was not given in the Book, and so it lacked the will to do so. The Traveler, seeing this, decided to become that will himself.
The Keeper became the The Will of the World, the collective will, a weighted average by power, and he willed it himself.
Now, think of time as a stack of paper, stretching upwards and upwards, like a tree, or an infinitely tall book. At the top, where you can never see, there lies a printer, endlessly taking in the topmost paper and printing it out, with some tiny alterations. These alterations are guesses, and the guesses are so random and free it can not guess what it might guess.
With his most prized Butterfly acting as a medium, he was able to hold hands with Time once again.