How to Stop Time

“The idea behind the names was simple: albatrosses, back in the day, were thought to be very long-living creatures. Reality is, they only live to about sixty or so […] But anyway, we were albatrosses. Or albas, for short. And every other human on earth was dismissed as a mayfly. So called, because of the short-lived aquatic insects who go through an entire life cycle in a day or—in the case of one sub-species—five minutes.”

The name of the Albatross Society is symbolic. Hendrich chose it to represent their longevity, albeit ironically. Revealing his elitist nature, Hendrich refers to humans at mayflies, emphasizing their short, meaningless lives.

“History isn’t something you need to bring to life. History already is alive. We are history. History isn’t politicians or kings and queens. History is everyone. It is everything. It’s that coffee. You could explain much of the whole history of capitalism and empire and slavery just by talking about coffee. The amount of blood and misery that has taken place for us to sit here and sip coffee out of paper cups is incredible.”

Tom loves history. He views it as a living entity found everywhere and in everything, and he is confident that he can teach it.

“I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It’s a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.”

While Tom has only ever loved Rose, he’s not sure he wants to love again. Losing her causes heartache and loneliness. She was his reason to live; without her, life is meaningless. Tom’s purpose is part of the larger theme of learning to find happiness.

“The longer you live, the more you realise that nothing is fixed. Everyone will become a refugee if they live long enough. Everyone would realise their nationality means little in the long run. Everyone would see their worldviews challenged and disproved. Everyone would realise that the thing that defines a human being is being a human.”

Demonstrating the inevitability of change, Tom comments on the human condition. He realizes that nothing stays the same. Everything changes and evolves. The only constant human trait is just being human.

“I sometimes repeat this in a dream. If I fall asleep on the sofa I remember that day. I remember the bulbs of blood on my mother’s skin. I remember the people at the doorway. And I remember Manning and his foot, stamping down, jolting me awake through the distance of centuries.”

Tom suffers from nightmares; usually he relives the death of his mother. That was the moment his life changed forever, the moment he started running. That fear is beyond time and space, reaching through centuries touching his dreams.

“There is a part of me—a small but dangerous part—that is keen to know where she knew me from. Or, maybe, a small part that simply wants to be solved.”

After spending centuries alone, Tom aches for connection. Camille seeks to solve his mystery, just like Rose did four hundred years earlier. Tom is also curious to know how she recognizes him.

“He told me the secret to managing the tightrope. He said people were wrong when they said the secret was to relax and to forget about the drop below you. The secret is the opposite. The secret was never to relax. The secret was never to believe you are good. Never to forget about the drop. Do you understand what I am saying? You can’t be a mayfly, Tom. You can’t relax. The drop is too big.”

Hendrich manipulates through fear. Tom must stay afraid for Hendrich to maintain control. He uses the analogy of a tightrope walker to illustrate his point of staying alert and fearful of death.

“People like us die in one of only two ways. We either die in our sleep aged around nine hundred and fifty, or we die in an act of violence that destroys our heart or brain or causes a profound loss of blood. That is it. We have immunity from so much human pain.”

Agnes considers the condition and immunity a blessing. After all, they can only die in two ways, and it is easy enough to avoid those. She encourages Tom that immunity from everything else makes the condition worth it. 

“The truth is this: there is more danger now than there has ever been. The advances being made in science and medicine are not advances to be welcomed: germ theory and microbiology and immunology. Last year they found the vaccine for typhoid. What you won’t know is that in pursuit of their research the inventors of the vaccine capitalised on the work of the Institute for Experimental Research in Berlin.”

Hendrich is displaying his fear of science and advancement. He believes the Berlin Institute uses albas like him as guinea pigs for their experiments. He is against advancement because it endangers his kind. He needs Tom to be aware and fearful of this, too.

“But the next thing I knew it was the dead of night and I was sitting up in bed awake from the sound of my own scream with a fat full moon outside the window and my whole body was shaking and I could hardly breathe. Terror was flooding into me from every side.”

Just a few days after his mother’s death, the nightmares start. Tom is attacked from within, planting the fear in his mind that he will carry for centuries. This fear becomes the basis for future fears of change and the unknown.

“For years now I had convinced myself that the sadness of the memories weighed more and lasted longer than the moments of happiness themselves. So I had, through some crude emotional mathematics, decided it was better not to seek out love or companionship or even friendship. To be a little island in the alba archipelago, detached from humanity’s continent, instead. Hendrich was right, I believed. It was best not to fall in love.”

The constant memory of his lost loved ones makes Tom sad. The happy memories are tainted by his loss. The heartache makes Tom believe Hendrich is right not to seek love.

“There was an emptiness, a void, made vast and wide when my mother had drowned, which I thought was never-ending, but when I looked at Rose I started to feel solid again, as if there was something to hold on to. Steady.”

Echoing their first meeting when Rose requests Tom steady himself, Tom comes to realize it is Rose who steadies him. Her motherly attentions replace those of his dead mother. She becomes his solid ground and purpose for living.

“I was standing close to her now. And I held her gaze. There was no running away. I had no idea I had been looking for her, but now I found her, I had no idea what would happen. I felt like I was spinning fast and out of control, like the seed of a sycamore, travelling on a changing wind.”

Proving that the best things are unexpected, Tom realizes he doesn’t want to run away from loving Rose. He feels the thrill of the unknown. Instead of shying away from it, he embraces the change.

“The past resides inside the present, repeating, hiccupping, reminding you of all the stuff that no longer is.”

Lines blur as the past blends with the present. Instead of viewing memory as a blessing, Tom feels the past intrudes on the present. It ruins happiness by reminding him of all that he has lost.

“As I was hearing myself, with fear slowly creeping into my voice, I realised how much I was simply parroting Hendrich. Everything I was saying was the kind of thing Hendrich said. There was something hollow to every word.”

When attempting to recruit the cardplayers in Arizona, Tom realizes how much he was becoming like Hendrich. He fears losing himself to the cause of the society. He now recognizes the society’s empty promises of protection.

“Time moves forwards. We have the luxury of time but we still can’t reverse it. We can’t stop it. We are one-way traffic, just the same as all these mayflies. You can’t simply cut away from the society any more than you can be unborn.”

Tom wants out of the society. Hendrich, using another fear tactic, is quick to remind him that the society is as much a part of him as life itself is. There is no life outside the society.

“It was the age of noise, and so suddenly playing music had a new importance. It made you a master of the world. Amid the accidental cacophony of modern life to be able to play music, to make sense out of noise, could briefly make you a kind of god. A creator. An orderer. A comfort giver.”

Music is the language of Tom’s soul. He finally finds appreciation as a musician in the Roaring Twenties. He feels in control of time, providing order and comfort in the midst of the chaos.

“It’s incredible. Like a third eye. The feeling for time becomes so profound that inside a single moment you can see everything. You can see the past and the future. It is as though everything stops and, for just that moment, you know how everything is going to be.”

Tom dreams of the clarity that Agnes describes. Such clarity would alleviate his fear of the future and unknown. In order for Tom to embrace change and find happiness, he needs the reassurance this clarity provides.

“For centuries I have thought all my despair is grief. But people get over grief. They get over even the most serious grief in a matter of years. If not get over then at least live beside. And the way they do this is by investing in other people, through friendship, through family, through teaching, through love. I have been approaching this realisation for some time now.”

Tom begins to realize that grief, sadness, and despair can be overcome by loving others whether as friends, family, students, or coworkers. Life is better lived alongside others than alone. He is learning to find happiness.

“The current rhythm is speeding up. I am approaching a crescendo. Everything is happening all at once. That is one of the patterns: when nothing is happening, nothing continues to happen, but after a while the lull becomes too much and the drums need to kick in. Something has to happen. Often that comes from yourself [...] Newton’s third law of motion. Actions create reactions. When things start to happen, other things start to happen.”

Tom uses Newton’s third law of motion to explain how time feels for him. For Tom, separate memories are colliding in the present—first Omai, now Mary Peters, and soon Marion. He suggests the climax and subsequent resolution is forthcoming.

“Everything contained something called mana—every tree, every animal, every human. Mana was a special power. A supernatural power. It could be good or evil but it always had to be respected.”

In Omai’s culture, mana is a spiritual energy existing inside everything. Mana implies a god-like authority or influence that requires respect. Omai’s mana is good; he is a leader with integrity.

“People you love never die [...] Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters. If you stop mourning them, and start listening to them, they still have the power to change your life. They can, in short, be salvation.”

Tom dwells on the people he loses, especially his mother and Rose. However, if he stops grieving and actually remembers them for who they were, they can still guide him. For instance, Rose can be an anchor grounding Tom to reality instead of being a source of sadness. Tom needs to make that choice.

“All my life, I realise, I have been dogged by fear. Hendrich had promised to be an end to those fears but all he had done was accentuate them. He controlled people by fear.”

So much of Tom’s life has been lost to fear and worry. His epiphany comes with the notion that Hendrich uses fear to manipulate his followers, an underlying theme of the narrative. Instead of dispelling fears, Hendrich magnifies them to maintain control.