Excerpt from The Watchmen
By Alan Moore
The photograph is in my hand. It is the photograph of a man and a woman. They are at an amusement park in 1959.
In twelve seconds time, I drop the photograph to the sand at my feet, walking away. It's already lying there, twelve seconds into the future.
Ten seconds now.
The photograph is in my hand. I found it in a derelict bar at the Gila Flats Test Base, twenty seven hours ago. It's still there, twenty seven hours into the past, in its frame, in the darkened bar. I'm still there looking at it.
The photograph is in my hand. The woman takes a piece of popcorn between thumb and forefinger. The ferris wheel pauses.
Seven seconds now.
It's October 1985. I'm on Mars. It's July 1959. I'm in New Jersey, at the Palisades Amusement Park.
Four seconds... three...
I'm tired of looking at the photograph now. I open my fingers. It falls to the sand at my feet. I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us... all we ever see of stars are their old photographs.
I am two hundred and twenty seven million kilometers from the Sun. Its light is already ten minutes old. It will not reach Pluto for another two hours.
Two hours into my future, I observe meteorites from a glass balcony, thinking about my father. Twelve seconds into my past, I open my fingers. The photograph is falling.
I am watching the stars. Halley's Comet tumbles through the solar system on it's great seventy-six year ellipse. My father admired the sky for its precision. He repaired watches.
It's 1945. I sit in a Brooklyn kitchen, fascinated by an arrangement of cogs on black velvet. I am sixteen years old.
It is 1985. I am on Mars. I am fifty-six years old.
The photograph lies at my feet, falls from my fingers, is in my hand.
I am watching the stars, admiring their complex trajectories through space, through time. I am trying to give a name to the force that set them in motion.
The Beatles - "Tomorrow Never Knows / Within You, Without You" from the LOVE album.
JUST LISTEN TO THE WORDS. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
The fictional characters of the NBC hit show "Heroes".