How old?

It's late on Monday afternoon, and guy walks in from the cold, rubbing his hands.

'I just found £20 in the street. I think when you find money like that, the person didn't lose it. They could afford it. And I needed it. There's something more to it, isn't there?'

'I can see why that's a good view for you to take, certainly.'

'Well, there would be no point in handing it in to the police, would there?'

'No.'

He looks around.

'I've never been in here before - walked past a fair few times. You must be into crystals and all that.'

'Well, I'm from a geological background. Get a lot of customers for crystal healing reasons, if that's what you mean.'

'Mmm. Yes.
It's amazing, the timescales here, isn't it? Millions of years.'

'It is, but I'm kind of used to thinking in those terms. Puts us in our place, a little. Makes us seem a little more insignificant.'

'Ah, but everything is significant, isn't it? The smallest ant, every leaf on every tree is significant. Just think - everything is supposed to be expanding. Since the Big Bang, everything is supposed to be moving apart. Yet our Milky Way is moving towards the Andromeda system. What does that mean? It's like a magnet, isn't it? Two poles move together, then suddenly - bang - they pull towards each other, don't they?

'Well... Not quite...'

'And how long has the universe been expanding - how long has it been around? Nobody knows!'

'Well, actually...'

'And how long did it take the Earth to form, from molten rock? Millions of years? But what's millions of years compared to billions of years? Eh? It's like seven days. So it took seven days to create the Earth, didn't it? Think about that!'
He turns and leaves.

'Hmm.'