The Concept of Time

By definition, the concept of time is a long explanation as to why and more importantly how time works. Filled with formulas, and theorems and theories, that are not visible to a plain person's eye at first at least. In its definition, we can see that the concept of time is based on the fact that every single second is irreversible. Nothing can go back to what it had been before, nothing will be the same in a way. Not that it will hurt your mind if you misplace your piece of bread on the table, and forget to place it in the right order. But it does leave us wondering, what if we could reverse an action?

Maybe not in that said timeline or universe, but not impossible. The thing is, that bread little Jamie misplaced on the table, cannot be moved back in our timeline, but maybe in an alien on Mars it could, or in an astronaut's. But surely not ours, as it will ask this big question. If I was two seconds earlier, would that piece of bread still be misplaced or have been moved back? And how would you, simply, explain that to little Jamie, whose concept of time consists of: two episodes of this, three seconds, five hours, ten "In a while"'s, and etc?

Our little Jamie is only six, yet yearns for something lost. All the seconds he lost whilst waiting for mom to get him his chocolate milk, or the hours he spent at school. He yearns for the ability to meddle with it, to remove the nuisances and be free from it. Yet again, he is left with lost seconds; one, two, three..; tick, tock, tick...

So what is the difference, really? He asked himself before bed, why had the teacher in maths class told him not to waste time, what was time? The light shuts off, the door closes, leaving him in the dark - alone with his thoughts swirling in his mind - day and night, but especially now (in the dark). "Mom?" he called out, but no one came Tick, one second lost. "Dad?" he called out again, no one appeared. Tock, another second lost. "Kelly?" he shouted for his sister, she never came. Tick, another one down the hourglass. Shivering, he let himself sink down in the sheets, feeling the warm duvet and subtle scent of fabric cleaner. The one specific one his mom spends quite some time choosing, one that is sensitive for the skin, doesn't smell awfully, so that is another thirty minutes lost. He groaned as he tried to take off the duvet. "Hey! Kelly, not funny!" he whined, as he thought it was his sister playing tricks on him, but no answer. Nothing.

The boy laid down his head, his hair ruffling in all different positions. He tried waking up, but he just couldn't. As if his eyes were taped shut, but no tape was in sight, not tape in touch. A few seconds passed and he saw a big surge of light pop out. Numbers appear to, but there is no evident order in them - first came the two, then the four, then the six etc. There were two or three clocks as well. Seven paintings, with strange looking swirls of numbers and lines. A chill passed through him, making his body turn towards a black wall. With nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not black, nothing. Then two numbers - five and seven; appear. Then follow the two and four and so on. They came in pairs, every thought second. Turning around he pieced together that one wall was white and the other black. One with white appearing numbers, the other with black ones. At the very top - in very small letters; there were two signs; "The Lost"; "The Gained". "Huh?" Jamie audibly gasped at the idiocracy.

Maybe the loss is considered every unwanted thing we do, and the gain is everything we actually enjoy "wasting" time on. Maybe it was, nobody knew, and then he fell. Down and down, numbers around, nudging him into a small crumbled position, making him even more vulnerable than he already was. He groaned at the feeling, more numbers floated around. Forming a make-shift tornado sucking him in. And then..

And then, he felt his feet getting colder. He sensed how his eyes fluttered open, and when he opened them he saw, his mom? "And that, little Jamie, the Egyptians came up with this simple thing called the concept of time" she cooed at him. Jamie chuckled "But how did the man fall into this void, mom?" he exclaimed. "With who knows what? Imagination, probably, one as strong as yours." she said as she cuddled him to sleep. "Good night, little time traveller."

Before the boy fell asleep he looked up to his mom "Did you waste time now, reading this story? Did you hurt the seconds and numbers by letting them fall in the The Lost wall?". His mom stared at him with an unreadable expression "Oh, but honey why would they go down that wall if you yourself learned why the Egyptians have discovered why the seconds disappear?" Jamie stood up and walked nervously around "If the seconds are said to disappear after they've been used, why are they being dropped in the black wall? Because, that is no disappearance, that is just movement which is inevitable." The woman chuckled at her son;'s nervous demeanour and ruffled his hair "Oh, little one, the second and numbers do move around, I'm sure you have sixty seconds around you right now, but they disappear from sight, at least for our sight they do. Maybe they are visible again for the aliens on Mars, or for the astronauts in Space, or the characters in your comic, but for us - they are not around us still." The boy looked up "Huh? But technically nothing ever disappears in the universe then, maybe for us it does, but for another person; thing it doesn't. So it just relocates." The mom stood up "Yes, technically it does not ever disappear, but you are no alien or astronaut, how are you sure that for them the seconds don't pass two by two? Or three by three? And with that in mind, how many in fact stay among us, or which ones disappear?"

The boy fell asleep, letting the seconds and numbers surround him. The mom fell asleep, thinking of nothing. The concept of time is yet another thing we humans have to discover much more about, and maybe little Jamie could finish what are not yet aware of?