Permanence

What could be more permanent than a towering cliff? Expressions such as "solid as the rock of Gibraltar" seek to compare human endeavors to the enduring solidity of just such a cliff. Yet, in "The Wave," we see that this monstrous edifice, two hundred feet high, may last a long while, but—in the end—it falls in upon itself. Nothing, this story seems to suggest, is truly permanent.

Time

Time changes everything. The sea could not have caused the cliff to fall in upon itself in a day or a month or a year—it took thousands of years. Time is the catalyst for change, and it is inevitable. It moves inexorably forward, allowing the events that occur within time to proceed and then become the past. At the end of the story, there is no more cliff, just a slope down to the...