One minute passed at one minute past

Where does all the time go? Sixty seconds have already happened, lost back there some­where, and I’ve barely begun. Damn this cease­less, onward march.

I know, I know it all very well, via more years of exper­i­ence than I wish to cata­logue right here and right now, since we’ve only got a few minutes left. I have always been an expert in plat­it­udes and pro­verbs, mean­ing­less words — always the most mean­ing­less — delivered to the care­fully chosen onlooker, the one who pos­sesses the shortest atten­tion span. Is that you? I hope so, because if you have another sixty seconds to spare, another minute to humour an old fool, would you con­sent to spend­ing the dying moments of the hec­tic annual whirl­wind in my com­pany, and let me share this brief story with you?

Once upon a time, the rules were simple: you were sup­posed to look for­ward, not back. For­ward, not back. But I’ve got this pain in my neck, a creak­ing in my tired bones that makes me think I might be stuck in this rear-facing pos­i­tion pos­sibly forever, though pos­sibly only until the new day dawns. Besides, I hate count­ing upwards, and count­ing down is so much easier. So much easier.

Five, four, three, two … what comes after two?

I know every meta­phor under the sun, as well as a few more under the ground, and they spurt forth unawares like sud­den unex­plained gey­sers. Here’s one: I always want to be the per­son leap­ing from the pre­cip­ice, attached to terra firma by noth­ing more than a barely trust­worthy rope, frayed and still fray­ing. Here’s another: instead, I am the one who steps nervously off the kerb, look­ing every which way except dir­ectly into the eyes of the driver whose vehicle’s brakes have failed. He too was at a cross­roads, but his satel­lite nav­ig­a­tion had given up the ghost. All he could do was to put his foot down, screw his eyes tight shut and pray to every single god he had ever read about in the pages of his favour­ite child­hood encyclopaedia.

Three years ago — I don’t remem­ber, I prob­ably slept through it, grim­acing at the world as it let off flares of dis­tress and aban­don­ment into the night sky’s phos­phorus glow. Two years ago, the world came to me from every angle and every time zone: I cel­eb­rated, com­mis­er­ated and cogit­ated at almost hourly inter­vals, trapped moment­ar­ily in the satellite’s glare, listen­ing for unearthly crackles from all points of the com­pass. One year ago, I could barely believe I was still here, so I sat in my room soak­ing up the sounds of a carous­ing city, listen­ing to favour­ite songs, and look­ing into a dis­tor­ted mir­ror to see what shape of reflec­tion gazed back at me. This year, I will be look­ing at the fire­works, whilst I hold hands with the present and smash­ing every timepiece within reach.

Put the clock down on the table. Take off your watch. Sur­render every last second. Break the hands, tear the faces in two, rip the mech­an­ics to shreds, and let the shards of glass slither through your fin­gers. Time stops here. Seize the moment and hold. Hold, hold, hold.