The Then-and-Now Controversy

     Now, with the beep-beep of the alarm-clock. And then, silence. Beep beep beep. Silence. And then, a machine-gun shouting lots of beeps in the air. They bounce on the walls. They jump in the ears where they die. Silently. Like ants or snowflakes. That was then, this is now.
     Now again: now is always there or here, now is also now, it exists in space and time at the same moment as if it were the link between geography and history. A little bit like then, but now.
     When was then? When is now?
     I assume then was before now, hence the use of the proper tense for to be – this does not apply to chronology, only to time, no question about it: then was and now is. But then, they change continuously: what is now will become then. And then, what happens to the previous then?
     My guess is that then grows whilst now stays the same size, compared to their respective predecessors and successors. In time, then becomes larger and longer, so big it needs a qualifier to help itself as in back then, sometimes it morphs into an expression like in the good old days, or blends in a cliché as in my days, when I was your age. These modifiers are vague, I know, it’s because most of the time we don’t bother asking about the age or size of the then in question; only police officers and historians are picky enough to want to know everything about it. So, who’s that then, then?
     Realistically speaking, then is an it. Not a she nor a he, an it. And an it that was, an it which existed a while ago, an it in dire need of life too. Then is dead. Then is a dead it buried in the layers of time past. Nothing to it, you’d say, since it’s only time – or, rather, a period of time. But we may have missed it or we simply miss it, otherwise why would we even think about that then – the dead it, that is – are we moored, tethered, anchored to it for some obscure reason?
     I wonder if it is not more so, and only, a grammatical consideration, for we know a lot of people living in the past, like way back when, and yet, they’re still kicking, aren’t they? Poor then, though: sometimes it reminds us how vain and mortal we are. Can we, the then and us, can we be saved from oblivion? Yes, of course! With and then or but then, another life begins. This then, then, is not a dead it from the past, this then is the key of a very much alive future which flows endlessly into the present now.