Catastrophe. A word with the sound — the music, the percussion — that it denotes. Crashing consonants and — if there are such things — harsh vowels: a beautiful word, a word that says what it means. Or what it used to mean, before the thing itself pre-empted it, took away its meaning, took away the need for such a word, or any word.

I must get away from here, from now, I must find — I must remember — history, music, words that mean something, and say them, feel them sing in my mind again. Like catastrophe. I seem to remember it was first a musical term, back in the old days, before. Ah. Another word that still means something, or can be made to.

Before means in front of. But it also means prior to, anterior — which also means in front of. But the past is behind, or so we all said, and so I always pictured it.