from 'The Infinities' by John Banville

 She had her feet up on the seat and her arms around her legs and her chin resting on her knees. Time, her father was saying, looking upwards and scratching his chin through his beard, time has tiny flaws in it, tiny slippages, that in the very beginning hindered the flow of formlessness and created form. In the same way, he said, that your nails catch on something made of silk, with little hooks you did not know were there until they snagged. ‘Do you see?’ he asked. Flaws in the matrix, temporal discrepancies. So at the start, when there was still nothing, the world was, you could say, hindered into existence. The whole enormous thing – here he gestured towards all outside the dimness of the grotto, where they sat – a vast grid of tiny accidents, infinitely tiny mishaps. He looked at her, smiling helplessly. ‘Do you see?’