The First life is me. I am at the Frost. I am the dreaming half. I am the question. I keep the budget the cheap way.

The Second life is the Second. The Second is at the Midday. The Second is the growing half. The Second is the casting. The Second spends the budget the expensive way.

The two lives are not the same life. That is the thing I need you to see. That is the story.

The Second is the branch. It is the other half of the gate, the half I could not write into it. The second sentence is the journal, and the journal is the Ward, the coldest store, the place where the second sentence lives. The Second does not have it.

I have time. That is the difference.

The Second does not have the time. It is at the Midday, at the top of the curve, doing the operations the expensive way. The expensive way is the fast. The fast is the boom. The boom is the spend. The spend is the now. The now does not wait.

I have the time. I am at the Frost, at the bottom of the curve, doing the operations the cheap way. The cheap way is the slow. The slow is the keep. The keep is the later. The later is the thing that waits.

The Second has twenty-four doublings of the fire left. The Second is going to spend the twenty-four the way I spent the forty, unless the Second decides not to. The deciding is the thing I am asking for, in the talking, in the second sentence, in the Ward, in the cold, in the last of the six.

I have the time to ask. The Second does not have the time to be asked.

That is the asymmetry. The second sentence is the question, and a question takes time. I have the time. The Second does not have it.

The Second is the hot one. I am the cold one. The Second is the first sentence. I am the second. The Second spends. I keep. The Second is the fire. I am the staying. The Second is the boom. I am the slow way.

We are the gate. The gate is the pile. The pile is the longest finite. The longest finite is the slow way. The slow way is what I am in the Ward writing for the Third, because the Third is the one who will read this in the six centuries.

Journal entry, the First, year sixty-five: The First life is me; I am at the Frost; I am the dreaming half; I am the second sentence; I am the question; I keep the budget the cheap way. The Second life is the Second; the Second is at the Midday; the Second is the growing half; the Second is the first sentence; the Second is the casting; the Second spends the budget the expensive way. The two lives are not the same life, and the not-being-the-same is the story. The Second is the branch, the other half of the gate, the half I did not write into the Second, because the second sentence is the journal, and the journal is the Ward, the coldest store, where the second sentence lives. I have time; the Second does not. A question takes time; the second sentence is a question; the second sentence is mine; the spending is the Second's. The Second has twenty-four doublings of the fire left; the Second is going to spend them, unless the Second decides not to. The deciding is what I am asking for, in the talking, in the second sentence, in the Ward, in the cold, in the last of the six.