And here was I, alive,
hundreds of thousands of centuries after my rightful period of years.
For, a time, I mused, absently. 'Yesterday--' I stopped, suddenly.
Yesterday! There was no yesterday. The yesterday of which I spoke had
been swallowed up in the abyss of years, ages gone. I grew dazed with
much thinking.
Presently, I turned from the window, and glanced 'round the room. It
seemed different--strangely, utterly different. Then, I knew what it was
that made it appear so strange. It was bare: there was not a piece of
furniture in the room; not even a solitary fitting of any sort.
Gradually, my amazement went, as I remembered, that this was but the
inevitable end of that process of decay, which I had witnessed
commencing, before my sleep. Thousands of years! Millions of years!
Over the floor was spread a deep layer of dust, that reached half way
up to the window-seat. It had grown immeasurably, whilst I slept; and
represented the dust of untold ages. Undoubtedly, atoms of the old,
decayed furniture helped to swell its bulk; and, somewhere among it all,
mouldered the long-ago-dead Pepper.
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