Oh sure, they're already looking at recalibrating simultaneous synchronicities into sequential and subsequential synchronicities in numerous spots across east Asia, south Asia--let candor confess, for all of Asia--to try to bring all of the most recent and contemporary of contemporaneities back into line; but absolutely no recalibrations can be attempted or even considered for America, its wild wobblings and wildly varying chronometries might themselves only be imperiled by any attempt to even record all the temporal anomalies breaking out in every state and region of the country.

You know the stories by now: the wife IS taking an eternity to get out of this store; the egg is NOT frying in this pan; THIS baby is NOT shutting up; NO, she does not stop peeing; THIS chirpy Beatles song is now interminable; WHY did this happen just after he began flossing? We know the other side just as well: this yard does not need mowing, this research paper will never have to be turned in, that pink slip will never arrive, this cat continues to kill those mice, this tornado is coming no closer, this scotch will never evaporate entirely, "Dead Flowers" is graduating from continuous perennial to eternal immortal, and some girls just look fetching forever. But it's quickly becoming all such a jumble . . .

The sure physical signs will be seen soon enough in every room on the planet. The "culprit panel" of the LHC was the first to develop the dark crusts of thorium 232 that soon evaporated straight into Geneva. They passed completely undetected through every domicile, every business, every laboratory, every diplomatic mission, every bank because the dark crusts kept completely to the dark places, the untended places that no one ever looks into, hiding in plain sight amidst the apparent desolation typical of unobserved spots--lots of corners and crevices, dark places to seep into and out from, all those unlit Alpine valleys. Only a few days more and the entire planet will be enveloped. Soon enough, every room on the planet will have at least one dark crusty corner, then in an instant entire walls and entire rooms will turn dark and crusty, and in the next moment following, suddenly EVERYTHING will be dark and crusty and melting into the Great Attractor with those neckbreaking spinecracking shifts in temporal velocity we've just begun accustoming ourselves to.

What kinds of seismic or geothermal events could be unleashed? Don't ask, no one has time to say. One other sad outcome: just as Professor Coelacanth was about to announce his discovery of the Fountain of Youth to his class of eager students in the School of Time Management, a protracted ellipsis deadly in its silent persistence fell from his purple lips . . . and stayed there, poised, hanging . . . .