The Time Being

…It was a thousand years before the Time Being produced the next Time-Maker, and this time, it was a human, by the name of 'Malefu. Her determination overflowed through her childhood, providing sweet nectar for the Time Flies to gorge on. But determination is easy – what gave her strength was fear. As we say, without fear, there are no risks; and without risks, one cannot change.

Her first glimpse of fear was at the age of eight. She was helping her father tend to the sick after an illness had swept through the town. No treatments were known beyond some basic comforts, leaving much of the town bed-bound and weak.

The sight of people once so directed reduced to this state infuriated and terrified 'Malefu' in equal parts.
“How can a simple thing like this hold such power over us?” she exclaimed, “How can it rob us of our Flies with such ease?” And so she resolved to banish this stagnancy from the world. Time Flies like an arrow, and this was hers.

Her second glimpse of fear was at the age of sixteen. An insect bite was all it seemed at first. An irritation, nothing more. But soon the sickness began to take hold, waves of fever restraining her to simply lie and wait. In that moment, she thought she would die. Her head, swimming with malaise, saw the end of a life, Decay, returning to the earth. And from it, once again, Rebirth, a myriad lives growing forth from her. She would not give in easily. It was a long-fought battle and the Decay was inevitable… but in the end, it was the virus which succumbed.

Her third glimpse of fear was at the age of eighteen. Another insect bite, another lurching ripple of fever… but then nothing. Her body had changed, it had learnt, replicating the Decay it had already seen to banish this invader. And through these fears, 'Malefu saw a solution. From the Decay of the illness came fresh Rebirth, one death exchanged for another.

And to this day 'Malefu's creations are used across the world, weaving time for countless lives. And we can only imagine what the next Time-Maker will bring…

– Excerpt from “Making Time: A Collection of Stories for the Time Being”, edited by Talli Zola (1985)

…In light of the hierarchy of the Time Being and Time-Makers, it is tempting to assume these higher powers hold some superior reverence, compared to the divinity of the 'ordinary', as claimed in Meda (2030). However, this apparent elevation is often more rhetoric in nature than religious. Take, for example, the common idiom “let's set this aside for the Time Being” as a way of settling or disregarding differences of opinion. Taken literally, it suggests some divine intervention to resolve the dispute, but in reality, it is closer in meaning to “let's set this aside for the future”. In this way, the Time Being, rather than representing some physical entity, embodies the manufacture and experience of the future itself. Rather than a 'god', with its usual connotations, the Time Being is treated more as the fabric of time itself, the aether which permits changes to be enacted and breathes life into the universe beyond its initial conditions of the 'Book'.

The title of Time-Maker is similarly misleading in its significance, and comparisons to 'prophets' (Meda 2030) are at best misguided. While it does indicate a level of influence above that of the average person, the actions of the Time-Makers encoded in myth are all within the realm of possibility – it is the scope and forward-thinking nature of their ideas which sets them apart. Further, the stories surrounding the Time-Makers emphasise that Time-Makers are created through living, their existing intentions enhanced by the accumulation of Time Flies in a virtuous cycle. In theory, anyone could become a Time-Maker, and their scarcity is merely a reflection of the rare combination of traits to form a personality which can initiate such a cycle.

In terms of predictive power, I maintain that there is no convincing evidence for such claims. The most which could be said is that Time-Makers are shown what is possible – and then make it a reality. This ability is by no means limited to Time-Makers, and it is not infrequent for people's decisions to be influenced or inspired by dreams. Perhaps these could be described as self-fulfilling prophecies, but this description is often unhelpful.

It should be re-iterated that Time-Makers are far from omnipotent – their behaviour must always respect the Book. Contrary to the common misconception (perhaps originating from the oft-derogatory phrase “straight from the Book” to mean unoriginal or undeveloped), the religion of the Time Being carries an amount of reverence for this blueprint of the universe, viewing it akin to a seed – something that must be grown, but which nevertheless holds the sum of potentiality…

– Excerpt from “On Every-day Divinity in Time”, by Professor Gacha Shau (2038)