Many
possible worlds, all playing with time. Time's nightingale trapped in
a bell jar. One circular, lives lived over, nothing temporary;
everything repeated precisely, no variations. Another, time visible
everywhere – clock towers, wristwatches, church bells telling the
hours with exquisite regularity. Safe; predictable; undoubtable. In
yet another time passes but little happens; or its texture sticky,
stuck, as are the people in this world, stuck at some point in their
lives, of pain or of joy, stuck alone. Or in a place where time
stands still, frozen, for eternity. Perhaps a world where there is no
time; perhaps a world with no memories. Each dawn the first dawn,
each eve the first eve. All without a past; ghosts. Unlike those who
live in a world where time flows fitfully, who see their future. All
guaranteed success, no risks. Unless obsessed with speed, with not
standing still. Unless in a world where time flows backward, with
many false starts; or one in which life is lived for just one day,
one sunrise, one sunset.
Time
a sense, quick or slow, dim or intense, orderly or random. For some
infinite, for others uncertain.
Time
a quality, it can't be measured. No clocks, no calendars, no definite
appointments. Events triggered (and recorded) by something other than
time.
Time
a visible dimension, births, marriages, deaths.
Stops,
starts, signposts. Intervals of action or nothingness. Minutes;
decades. Fixed, with clock-like inevitability, A corridor of rooms,
one in use, one prepared. Time bouncing back and forth, confusing
past, present, future. Time shifting, fleeting dreams, floating
clouds. Time fidgets, flutters and hops; jumps and flies; but trapped
– stopped – it withers and dies.
Picture credit: Clock, Jacek Yerka (source: WikiaArt).
With
acknowledgments to and freely quoting from Einstein's
Dreams by Alan Lightman.
Written January 2023.
