Once Below a Time, Section 1, pp. 9-18 Summary and Analysis

As Frederick begins to reminisce about his childhood, he decides to borrow a phrase from Dylan Thomas's poem "Fern Hill" to describe the mentality of early childhood. "Once below a time" indicates a period when the finite nature of time has not yet been discovered. Frederick calls this mental place Eden, after the Bible's Garden of Eden, an innocent paradise free from death, knowledge, and fear. Frederick notes that this is a more accurate way to see the world, saying that as children we understand that every moment has the capacity to last forever. He especially points out that even after the universe burns out, any given moment of life has already happened, and can never be undone. Frederick feels that, rather than thinking about past or future, young...