This work addresses the possible collapse of our civilisation as well as the limits of human temporality compared to the cosmos. In the footsteps of my childhood in the Canton of Neuchâtel, this project is based on the explorations of two sites: the first in the submerged pile-dwelling remains of a civilisation of the Bronze Age; the second in the eroded gorges of a local river, the Areuse. The approach is in a way similar to that of an archaeologist, but it is fuelled by a romantic impulse, that of a certain quest for the sublime.