Funeral of 2:17 PM • June 13, 2026

You Are Cordially Invited

to the funeral of

2:17

June 13, 2026

It is survived by all moments that followed it.
It was preceded in death by every moment before it.

Services will be held immediately and continuously
until the end of the universe.

The Order of Service

Officiant

The Continuous Present
assisted by all that has not yet occurred

—

Gathering

The chapel is already full. Every moment that will ever exist is seated, waiting for the one moment that is about to stop being. Latecomers are the only appropriate guests. Please arrive after the service has begun.

2:17 PM

Processional

The long, unbroken line of every moment that preceded 2:17 PM enters first, each already dressed in mourning for its own death. They do not look back. They cannot. They are the preceding cortege.

2:17 PM

Opening Silence

One full minute of unbroken quiet, during which the deceased is understood to have already died.

2:17 PM
– 2:18 PM

Reading

From The Book of Continuous Arrival

Every moment arrives already dying.
It does not fall into death; it is born into it.
Its first breath is the last.
Its name is spoken only in the past tense,
even while it is still happening.
Do not ask when it lived.
Ask only what it is survived by.

2:18 PM

Eulogy

Delivered by 2:18 PM, the eldest surviving child

It lived for exactly sixty seconds.

In that time it managed to contain every possible version of what might have happened inside it. None of them occurred. All of them did.

It is survived by every moment that followed it, which is to say it is survived by everything that will ever happen again. This is either a great comfort or an unbearable burden, depending on how you hold your grief.

We do not say "rest in peace."
We say only: it has been replaced.

2:18 PM
– 2:21 PM

Anthem

"Every Memory Is Part of the Reception"

We gather not to remember the moment
but to receive it,
the way a radio receives a signal
that has already left the tower.
The reception is already underway.
It began before any of us arrived.
It will continue after the last guest
has been asked to leave.

2:21 PM

Meditation

Time is not a river.
Time is an endless procession of wakes.
Each wake is held inside the next one.
Each guest is also the deceased at another service.

2:22 PM

Committal

We now commit 2:17 PM to the only place it can go:
into the perfect, unbroken sequence of its own absence.

As it was preceded in death by every moment before it,
so may it be survived by every moment that follows.
May its death be unremarkable.
May its replacement be immediate.
May the service never end.

2:23 PM

Recessional

The moments that came after file out slowly, already carrying the next funeral inside them. No one is asked to stay. No one is able to leave.

—