Ticking Timebomb

CW: This piece contains some swearing and sort of sensitive topics. Viewer discretion advised

It’s 44 minutes to the deadline, yet I’m staring at a blank screen.

A week to write a story and yet I’m here with 44 minutes and nothing to show for it— I barely decided on a prompt, nor the direction the story would go.

But it’s not all my fault, is it? All I did this past week was run around— rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday, two clubs and a sectional on Wednesday, rehearsal and truck loading on Thursday, and a football game on Friday with a competition to stress about on Saturday. 

42 minutes left. Start typing.

I write a line— no, that looks bad. Delete. Rewrite.

Fuck, wait, I think I liked the other one better. Undo. Undo. Undo. 

Every time I have ideas, I don’t have any way to get away from people and write, yet the moment I finally have the peace and quiet to spill my imagination onto paper, nothing happens. It’s like when a toilet automatically flushes before you actually need it to.

Fuck, what kind of analogy was that? Delete. Rewrite. (Well, it’s technically true.)

39 minutes to the deadline. 

How do people do this? Why can’t I do it the same way? Why is my schedule so packed for two whole months that I can barely throw up a story?

And don’t get me started on school work— honors and AP classes sound great until you’re knee-deep in a project you procrastinated on and suddenly can’t figure out how to complete and then you remember—oh, yeah, I have two other assignments due Monday that I haven’t started yet! Say goodbye to your weekends and your free time.

Fuck, time! 36 minutes. Keep typing!

Where is this going? Great question! My fingers are doing the thinking, not my brain— that’s its job, but apparently I don’t pay it enough to do it well! 

Did I seriously mess up that word? Delete. Correct. What’s wrong with me?

I hate how I phrased that. Delete. Rework— that’s worse!

I wonder what the younger me thinks, the me that wanted to sell paintings until they learned artists don’t make money until they’re dead and suddenly everybody adores their work. How twisted is that, really? Nobody cares until you’re dead, like how nobody cared about the marching band until we started pulling in more wins than the football team will ever see (seriously, how do we keep losing so miserably?). When we won, we got praise, a proclamation, fucking patches for our $200 varsity jackets! We were grateful— we always will be— but it makes me wonder why it has to be like that. Why do we only care once everything starts to go well? 

Shit, that contradicts my previous statement— why do we only care about people when they die?

29 minutes. Go, go, go!

When someone dies, it’s all about how amazing they were, even if they were nobody special or a complete jerk in their life. They’re someone’s devoted partner and parent, caring friend, and loving sibling. They’re optimistic and always know how to make someone laugh. They’re nice sentiments—I’m not saying they aren’t— but a corpse doesn’t hear those words. Why don’t we tell them when they’re alive? Maybe that would cut back the number of suicides every year. 

Well, the government is also at fault for that, but I don’t have time to explain that.

25 minutes. 

Our time alive is limited and not just for humans— the old Penn Station is a perfect example of the sand running through the hourglass, its time finally running out because some people thought it was necessary. Our time runs out eventually, whether we like it or not. Sometimes life lets us run it out ourselves. Sometimes fate— or perhaps karma— does that work for us. Sometimes we orchestrate it ourselves with pill bottles and unlocked guns. 

The government does it too, but again, that’s a different story for a different evening. 

21 minutes. I’m still not sure where this is supposed to go. Does this count as talking to yourself? 

Fuck, I can’t submit this! Who wants to watch an aspiring author lament about the speed at which time slips away from us? Well, it’s too late now— wow, another time reference! It’s all around us, isn’t it, reminders that we’re merely slaves to the passage of time?

The concept—oh yes, I said concept— of time holds us in a death grip. It rips away all we hold dear simply because it exceeded its limit in this plane of existence! There’s this one restaurant I’ve never been to yet passed all my life and I watched the main part of its once vibrant sign fade to solid white, a testament to the age of the place and the age of the person staring out the car window wondering if the owner will ever repaint it. 

I hear about old, vintage diners with bright stripes and milkshakes and write them into my character’s worlds, desperate not to lose them the way the world had let them wither and die. I’ll write about waitresses on roller skates and kids tossing quarters in a jukebox so they get the songs they want because it’s better than facing the world I got stuck living in.

14 minutes— how do you even end a rant like this?

Time sometimes ends abruptly— a good person dying when they still had several years to go. Sometimes it’s a slow burn—the decline and eventual end of drive-in movies. It hurts regardless. One day, something’s time has run out. 

9 minutes. How did three lines take me five minutes? 

I still need an ending. How about this?

Time is patient, yet it is also fast. Minutes become seconds, hours become minutes, days pass by in a watercolor blur and holidays feel more like a special edition TV show episode than a real day. We don’t have much time—at least, not as much as we want. Time is running out. What is it running out for? You answer that question, not me. People should tell you how much they love you before you’re in a coffin six feet under. You should do the same to the people you love. Take photos of the places you like because one day a construction crew may demolish it. Your time is limited, so you might as well do something with it. Don’t let time overrun you, yet understand you can’t outrun its constant pacing. Accept time. Work with time. Succeed with time.

Oh, and set aside time for your writing— that’s how you don’t become a spontaneous philosopher.

Time’s up.