I had never really noticed it before, but the clock
face began to fascinate me as it had never done before. The continuous path of
it's shape being round and having no beginning or end. I had always
"seen" the clock as having a top and bottom though it has no actual
starting place. Flat and featureless. Not very interesting. Why was I
fascinated by it, then? The hands climb upwards at different speeds on one side
towards the top and fall down the other side at their unchanging speed towards
the bottom. It doesn't really have sides either. No uphill struggle or rush
downhill. Just round and round and round. Almost hypnotic in its movement. The
clock never hurries and has a patience that is remarkable. A clock never seems
to get bored, maybe because it is always busy. I still procrastinate. Important
things get put off as new things get in the way. Still getting it wrong about
what is important and what is not. A clock doesn't seem to care. It is always
telling me important facts, though never anything really new and it always
seems to demand my attention, though it never asks for anything. Occasionally,
it signals events, but cares not what I do, even if I act on its signal or not.
Where do I exist? Now? Then?
Later? Wherever I am at any moment the clock is always in the present, an
existence forever in the present, living the boring life of a device that never
itself seems to get bored. I am constantly moving in my time between past,
present and future. For me, time seems to speed up and slow down and there is
no consistency to it all. Sometimes it's too fast and then it's too slow. Time
is never "just right". The clock goes on. Round and round and round.
I may imagine myself to be in the past or future at any moment in time, but I
am always in the present. The clock tells me that. The clock wouldn't lie to
me, would it? How could it? It just goes on and on and on and on. This clock
seems to have total control over me, yet it does nothing interesting. Perhaps
it is this single observation that fascinates me?
I am glad I am not a clock
even though it is a remarkable device. A clock is also very strange by going
nowhere, yet never standing still either. It goes round and round going to
nowhere and showing all movements onwards and forwards. I would not like to
live in such a confined space as a clock, but then it is everything from the
beginnings of experience to the end of existence. Time may go on beyond the end
of time itself, but it has still gone nowhere. It's all very odd and even though
I watch time too closely, I always seem to be losing it. Whatever it is, and it
is always in the present, time can still record what has happened in the past
trapping events in time as it marches onwards going nowhere. If I could free
myself of time then, perhaps, I could have true freedom.
Maybe it is not such a dull
life after all.
© Louis Brothnias (2005)