Maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished. Maybe happen is never once but like ripples maybe on water after the pebble sinks, the ripples moving on, spreading, the pool attached by a narrow umbilical water-cord to the next pool which the first pool feeds, has fed, did feed, let this second pool contain a different temperature of water, a different molecularity of having seen, felt, remembered, reflect in a different tone the infinite unchanging sky, it doesn't matter: that pebble's watery echo whose fall it did not even see moves across its surface too at the original ripple-space, to the old ineradicable rhythm
In this quote from William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!", the author explores the idea that events are not isolated occurrences but rather interconnected moments that resonate and leave lasting impacts, much like ripples in water created by a falling pebble. Each ripple represents how experiences can reverberate through time and spaces, subtly influencing one another as they travel across different "pools" of memory and emotion.
Faulkner suggests that even if one pool of experience possesses a unique characteristic, such as temperature or molecular structure, it is still tied to the previous pool through a continuous thread of connection. This reflects the complexity of human experience, where every moment is subject to interpretation and influenced by what came before it, creating an ongoing rhythm of existence that endures even when the original event has long passed.
