I find myself, today, being the person who got the unenviable task of telling everyone else how it’s going to be. Actually, it’s probably a reasonable selection. I am the one person who can reasonably say that, if you don’t happen to like what I’m going to impart to you, then come and tell it to my face, and we’ll work it out. One way, or the other, we’ll work it out.

Here’s the thing. It’s become obvious, that Time is not on our side, here in this cycle of existence. Temporally speaking, we’re skating on thin ice. For those of us who mostly sit and watch, the genre has shifted, from mostly war stories and romances, often with tragic outcomes, to horror, bordering on the apocalyptic. You know, that’s not a good trend.

And here’s the thing. There’s supposed to be a bunch of people who have the job of keeping Time flowing only forwards, at a generally predictable speed, without jumps and hiccups, and with every entity enjoying a singular right to come into being, and either persist or depart, without further comment. And you know what? The job us not getting done. There is shit happening. And those of us who watch, have noticed.

So, if them that are supposed to be dealing with this shit, are not getting the job done, hey, someone else is going to have to take it on. So today, I’m here to tell you about the someone else. Obviously, I’m one of them. I’ll leave it to all of you to guess whether I’m one of the chiefs or one if the Indians. And, if you want to take offence at my use of those terms, then come and tell that to my face. My face is not a white, Anglo-Saxon, Judao-Christian face.

We, that is us, have formed the Time Council. We will be policing the time-lines. We will be dealing with anomalies and time fragmentation. We will be dealing with loops and holes. And we will be making corrections. How will we make those corrections? Well, I’m on this Council, so have a serious think about that, and then decide whether you personally want to find out the answer to that question.

We are not a huge body of people. I’m not going to name all the names, but we are well represented from those Above, those Below, and those Elsewhere. Most of the significant bloodlines are represented, as are most of the significant political, religious and moral groups. And we definitely have the skills and the powers to get shit done.

We will not be basing ourselves in any one place. We will not be meeting on any given schedule. But when the need arises, we will evaluate, educate and possibly exterminate, to quote one of the groups that are likely to draw our attention, or not, as we determine that the situation warrants. And if we act, it will be decisive. Because, you know, we want existence to continue … existing.

I thank you for your time.

Laurenna Helgram.