The Bucket Period

The Bucket Period is one of the periods of the xkcd comic Time, the final short narrative piece of both the Summit Era and the Journey Eon. It lasted from frame 2611 to frame 2615.

Summary

The lone bucket floating on the sea which now covers where the sandcastle once was.

The period is marked by a short cutscene that shows the Sandcastle has been completely engulfed by the rising tide, and all that remains is a floating bucket. The first and last frames are a pure white frame, like the final frame of the Fading period which concluded the Sandcastle Eon. The three frames between the all-white bookends merely show the lonely bucket floating in the sea, which now covers the place where the sandcastle once was. It appears to be an answer for the sake of the audience to the question Megan posed at the end of the previous period regading the status of their sandcastle.

Discussion

While much shorter than the Fading, this short tag scene essentially fulfills the same narrative purpose of marking the end of a chapter, appropriately placed immediately following the completion of Cuegan's ascent up the mountain, and effectively harkening back to the first chapter by revisiting the scene where all of the action of the first eon occurred.

While answering Megan's question (for the audience, not for her), this period seems to have raised more questions than it answered. It reinforces the dramatic degree to which the sea is rising and renews the question of why it is happening. It prompts the viewer to wonder what happened to LaPetite, especially while proving to the viewer that Randall has not forgotten the seashore, and thus perhaps suggesting that we will still yet learn more about her origins and her mysterious actions at the end of the Sandcastle Eon. It also causes the viewer to wonder if the action will eventually return to the seashore, and thus whether or not Cueball and Megan will also learn of their castle's fate someday.