There is a mountain. It rises up out of the desert floor, imposingly. Troops are massed on one side, their foe on the other. The army advances, but to engage the enemy they must traverse the heights or march around.

They march around.

Scribes note this.

The war is long over and the banners of both kingdoms have vanished, even out of memory. As nature would have it, so too has the mountain. Time and sandstorms have eroded and battered it into oblivion and all that remains of it is the hurried writing of an nameless scribe. On a parchment. Buried in the sand.

Millennia pass and a well meaning archaeologist happens upon the parchment; he does not happen upon the mountain. Other artifacts found nearby do not mention the mountain, though some mention a mountain several miles away. The archaeologist concludes the scribe placed the battle at this remaining mountain.

An excavation, however, will show no evidence of battle. Not a chariot. Not a spear. Not a bone. This is of course because no battle happened here — it happened at the other mountain. But the other mountain is gone and so the archaeologist must deduce the scribe recorded a fiction.

* * *

We observe from a fixed point. We assume — albeit safely — that everything around us has progressed to its current point linearly but we cannot account for those things which are hidden from investigation; we cannot account for a mountain that only one voice calling in the desert testifies to. How arrogant our belief that we have dominion and command of the what has come to pass.