“Weekends” were now just, “days.” She didn’t bother emerging from her bed until after what would normally be lunchtime, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like she had anything planned for Saturday. Or Sunday. The urgency of time had ceased to exist. There wasn’t even the Leader’s press conference to cringe at, or evening news to tune in to.
Time.
Some scientists theorized that time simply IS. It’s only humans that perceive time as a linear phenomenon with a yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They say that if you fall into a black hole, past the event horizon, you would be stretched out into an infinite wet noodle, and as you gazed out into space you would see all of time at once, there was no beginning, middle, or end.
She always thought that would be an excellent way to die.
But today she realized that the days were becoming especially noodly, stretched out.
Is this what retirement will feel like?
***
On her daily walk she found herself talking to the trees in her head. She would have done it outloud, but there were still some people enjoying the park. She regretfully inhaled a few exhales again- a woman’s skunky perfume, gross. The path was too narrow in this park for the recommended six feet of social distancing. These trees had smooth and papery trunks- eucalyptus she presumed. She wasn’t a tree expert, but maybe she would take up that hobby too.
Why not? There was enough time.
What were they thinking, these trees? Were they celebrating the situation? Were they happy that the earth was finally getting rid of the real virus- humans? Were they talking to each other high up in the canopy, waiting for the day when their bark would be free from human hands that carved deeply into their skin with knives: a tag, a heart with an arrow, a name?
They only rustled softly back at her.
***
She recalled a Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last.” In this episode the main character Henry Bemis is always trying to sneak-read, because he was just too busy to ever sit down with a book. His boss reprimanded him and his wife was just downright cruel. But then a miracle happened- an atomic bomb exploded and luckily for Bemis, he was in the bank vault at the time of the blast. He emerged in a human-less world with no job to go to, and no wife to admonish him. He found a library and stacked up all the books by year. He had all the time in the world to read. She felt like Bemis. She had all this TIME. All these things she had time for- the things that normally one would complain about not ever having the time to do? Now, there was time. But she wasn’t doing much. Just laying there gazing glassy-eyed into social media, into screens that never faded-the electricity was safe. It was like there was all this TIME, but TIME had stopped.
Frozen.
Perhaps this would change in the coming weeks. She didn’t know.
The number of deaths were still going up daily.
Oh and Bemis? Right when he was ready to get to his precious reading, right when he was about to lose himself in another world he so desired to be a part of, he stepped on his coke-bottle-thick glasses, and crushed them.
Time.
Some scientists theorized that time simply IS. It’s only humans that perceive time as a linear phenomenon with a yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They say that if you fall into a black hole, past the event horizon, you would be stretched out into an infinite wet noodle, and as you gazed out into space you would see all of time at once, there was no beginning, middle, or end.
She always thought that would be an excellent way to die.
But today she realized that the days were becoming especially noodly, stretched out.
Is this what retirement will feel like?
***
On her daily walk she found herself talking to the trees in her head. She would have done it outloud, but there were still some people enjoying the park. She regretfully inhaled a few exhales again- a woman’s skunky perfume, gross. The path was too narrow in this park for the recommended six feet of social distancing. These trees had smooth and papery trunks- eucalyptus she presumed. She wasn’t a tree expert, but maybe she would take up that hobby too.
Why not? There was enough time.
What were they thinking, these trees? Were they celebrating the situation? Were they happy that the earth was finally getting rid of the real virus- humans? Were they talking to each other high up in the canopy, waiting for the day when their bark would be free from human hands that carved deeply into their skin with knives: a tag, a heart with an arrow, a name?
They only rustled softly back at her.
***
She recalled a Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last.” In this episode the main character Henry Bemis is always trying to sneak-read, because he was just too busy to ever sit down with a book. His boss reprimanded him and his wife was just downright cruel. But then a miracle happened- an atomic bomb exploded and luckily for Bemis, he was in the bank vault at the time of the blast. He emerged in a human-less world with no job to go to, and no wife to admonish him. He found a library and stacked up all the books by year. He had all the time in the world to read. She felt like Bemis. She had all this TIME. All these things she had time for- the things that normally one would complain about not ever having the time to do? Now, there was time. But she wasn’t doing much. Just laying there gazing glassy-eyed into social media, into screens that never faded-the electricity was safe. It was like there was all this TIME, but TIME had stopped.
Frozen.
Perhaps this would change in the coming weeks. She didn’t know.
The number of deaths were still going up daily.
Oh and Bemis? Right when he was ready to get to his precious reading, right when he was about to lose himself in another world he so desired to be a part of, he stepped on his coke-bottle-thick glasses, and crushed them.
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