Dyschronometria

Such a simple concept as not knowing where I stand on the great tapestry of time’s endless happenings is a tragedy. I can only laugh at my mind’s feeble attempts at creating a distinction between this day and how many had passed since my affliction began. The day/night cycle now resembles the momentary blackness as you blink, performed an uncountable number of times.

Every day our Government thanked us for seemingly pausing our lives so they can take care of the killer virus threatening us outside, ignoring an even bigger threat. Time. time is God, a selfish one at that. She cares not for our problems, hopes and dreams. She will not stop to give us a chance to take a breath as her vast currents drag our reality away. Day and night. Day and night. The weakness of my bones. The fuzziness of my sight. This is my calendar now, the only evidence of ‘progression’, even though it indicates the contrary. My withering mind and body have become the last evidence that I am indeed ‘now’, at least more ‘now’ than I was before. 

But before when? Before now? But...now is now...isn't it? 

It has all become pandemonium in my mind. My solitude has handicapped my ability to know or understand how many days have passed and how many more remain. And every second I am as fearful and as confused as the last. All I know is we were forced to stay at home for a number of days, months or years I could not divulge even if I tried. How arrogant of us to think we can hit pause on the world and expect the universe to do the same.

No, time continues.

All this time alone, I figured it was a blessing. I could wake up when I wanted, go to work in my underwear, take naps whenever I desired. But now I realise the purpose of all these things. They were shock absorbing barriers in the great race of life to stop me from falling off the track and into the void. 

I am in the void now. My internal clock is haywire, I tire when the Magpies sing their good mornings to the young, orange sun. I am forced to stare, wide awake into the velvet darkness of midnight when the banshees come to bring bad thoughts and embarrassing memories to the forefront of my mind.

When did it begin?

I got a bleep on my phone on a day I’m not sure how distant from this one. Our Prime minister said we were winning the war against the killer virus. He told us we would be free to leave our homes soon. 

This is good news...right? 

I think I was happy when I heard the news, but the feeling that followed eclipses all others in that instance in time. At first I was puzzled, but it quickly developed to a strange sickness at the bottom of my stomach, far beneath my nerves. I replayed the video to find what date he indicated was the final day of our duress. 

“The something of the something of two-thousand and something.” The words were hazed in my ears, like he spoke another language. I’m pretty sure half the views of the video were from me, as I replayed it again and again. My confusion turned to panic as I pleaded my mind to understand the language of time. What I didn’t know was that I had long forgotten it. 

Words? Words!

A few clicks later I had the article up on my laptop. 

“Shops, hairdressers, gyms and outdoor hospitality could reopen on….in England under plans set out by the PM.”

Was this a practical joke or something? Were they mocking us? I laughed at the sheer audacity as I logged into my trusted social media account. Friends uploading pictures captioned with statements expressing their joy over finally being allowed out. Fifteen party invitations were sent to me. But the dates were jumbled conglomerations of lines, circles and strokes that my brain just refused to understand. I slammed the laptop shut. The four walls around me that sheltered me from the outside for...I’m not sure how long were now closing in on me. My flat felt so unfamiliar upon the realization that I didn’t know how long I’d been inside it.

Have I ever left? 

My body poured with a paranoid heat as the calendar on my wall could only be translated as a series of squares with a hieroglyphic number in the corner. I was alone in a forest that is the universe. Unable to figure out how far north, east, south or west I was in relation to anything else. As every mundane tree trunk around me was identical, so were the days.

My last ditch effort to cling to some aspect of my sanity was the watch on my wrist. My body shivered as I slowly raised my hand. I blinked the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath as the watch ticked just beneath my vision, each tick, a droplet of time I will never get back. I looked down. I could see three hands, different shapes, lengths and sizes. They pointed in various directions. One of them, the thinnest, ticked ticked ticked. The other two stood stationary, pointing right or left or up or down, I could not tell. I could not make sense of what it was trying to say to me.

 Why? Why had I lost the language of time?

That day, the sun took its sweet time to falter. Pacing and panicking, I grew paranoid of the electrical currents in my nerves, my mind. What else of this reality were they mistranslating? As the moon rose, I lay in my bed and waited for this infinity to end. It felt like I was stuck in the transition between one instant and another. How many centuries had passed outside as I remained incarcerated within my head?

The bad thoughts danced into my mind on queue, as the moon took its place at the peak of the black sky, though I didn’t notice its ascent until it was there. Now it was just me and the forevers of my mind, a tormented, helpless being adrift and alone.

The sun returned, and I was awoken by the Magpies just outside my purgatory singing me gospels. I rose and ran to my laptop. The time and date at the bottom right of the screen were blurred pen strokes that perhaps only had meaning to the child that scribbled it. With a few clicks a word document was created, and called: Year 1, Day 1.

Year 1. Day 1.

I have decided to document my condition, with hopes of understanding it. I do not know how long I have been suffering from it. I do not know the current date or time. When I message friends to ask, the reply is also a strange jumble of lines and curves that I simply cannot read. It’s as if I’m dyslexic with time. Nevertheless, I shall record my day to day activities, and any new occurrences from here on out.

Year 1. Day 2.

I’ve been watching the Magpies that loiter around my window every sleepless morning. They are a family of five, chanting their prayers to each other. It makes me miss my own family. When they announce our freedom from the confinement of our homes, I shall seek help, but most importantly, I will never take advantage of physical company again.

Year 1. Day 3. 

The grocer delivered my groceries today. As we engaged in petty small talk, I coolly asked him what the time was. All that left his mouth was a croaking muffle beneath his face mask, similar to hearing a voice in another room. I had to physically refrain myself for breaking down into tears and pleading for help. I’m not that crazy, yet. I wish he stayed a bit longer.

Year 1. Day 4.

Nothing new occurred today, I ordered an hourglass online. Maybe I can count seconds and watch it pour away, perhaps my mind will explode. Regardless, I will begin training my brain to record time tomorrow.

Year 1. Day 4.

Nothing new occurred today, I ordered an hourglass online. Maybe I can count seconds and watch it pour away, perhaps my mind will explode. Regardless, I will begin training my brain to record time tomorrow.

Year 1. Day 4.

Nothing new occurred today, I ordered an hourglass online. Maybe I can count seconds and watch it pour away, perhaps my mind will explode. Regardless, I will begin training my brain to record time tomorrow.

Year 1. Day 64

This morning I opened my laptop to 60 entries of year 1 and day 4, all of which are identical. At first, I assumed it was an error on my laptop, until I stumbled upon 58 hourglasses on my kitchen floor, (I counted them, and I checked my phone, the 59th should be arriving in a few hours). I have lost my sanity. Today, I will-

???

The hospital bed is comfortable. The food tastes like cardboard. My parents are an hour away, whatever that means. My neighbours, after hearing a harrowing screech from my apartment and the violent shatter of glass, decided to call the authorities. They found me in a pool of my own blood, twitching as the shards of glass from the clock on my wall poked into my skull, perhaps prodding my brain. After explaining to the doctors what I was going through, they deduced I had taken my clock off the wall and put my head through it, in a psychotic fit of rage and frustration. I was alarmed at first, but even more alarmed at the coolness and understanding of the doctors as they explained this to me. Apparently I wasn’t the first, and the ‘Dyschronometria’ ward was growing to rival the killer virus ward. Chills poured down my back when they said I was one of the more mild cases. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how badly other’s had it. 

Millions of people, locked alone in their homes as the world just sprints by. Maybe they think they still have time to start that business or ask that girl out on a date. Maybe they think the moment the doors open, the world will be the same as the one they left. My pounding head hummed louder pain at that thought. I stared up to the reddish sky outside the window beside me, watching the sun rays crawl up my sheets, as a family of magpies chirped outside. I envied them, and their freedom. Never need a clock or calendar to tell them what to do and when. They just...do. But now, unclear if the sun is rising or setting, I am tired, and I wish to close my eyes.