chapter c: shrouded in the myths of time

myeck's immigrant mother often used religious imagery in instructing and guiding her children. Unfortunately, her religion was from the old country and was completely unknown in America and to her children, so her references simply left them confused and afraid. Therefore, as a public service, we present a brief excerpt from their mythology:

part iv: one one thousand, two one thousand  

Servant Girl tries very hard to take care of the World and the people on it but sometimes life gets complicated anyway.  Every now and then Bird lays an egg that is so nasty that the only thing to do is for Cook to carry it out of the House and give it to one of the less-favored workers on the Estate.  By now they have a special tray to carry them on, as they tend to ruin a tray for serving food.
The whole process usually runs smoothly, but sometimes Cook's route takes her near Servant Girl and the World.  She hates when this happens because her people can see the smoldering ball approaching in the sky and they get all scared and start counting things by thousands.
NOTE:  A cult has even sprung up in the old country surrounding the phenomenon.  Calling themselves the Circulars, the cultists believe that Time is a ball which must keep rolling or the universe will cease to exist, and that these celestial rogues are being sent by Bad Guy, trying to hit the ball of Time and knock it into a square shape.  They have built a huge open-air temple called the Rectangle of Time and gather there shortly after the winter solstice, where, at the appointed time, a large glowing ball is ceremonially dropped onto a pile of last year's unsold pinup calendars.  The cult members wait, fully expecting the end of the universe, until the manager of the temple bookstore opens the door a few minutes later and announces that the new calendars have arrived, only the Heidi Klum ones did not come in the expected quantities so they'd better act now.