Grass has been growing over the entire past, which sudenly appears now to be leveled, no longer having any time value at all. Until – one usually discovers it with a blow – the displacement of the quanta of the past, which has continued to take place under the grass, becomes manifest: then the time of the war is no more tedious than the time after it, and what now appears as a mass of time, like a mountain, is perhaps just a few summer weeks, very far away, that brought with them an already half-forgotten love affair.
Améry, On Aging, 10
Late Voice 