Everything on this earth is determined by time. What part of the day it is, what season has fallen, the correct amount of seconds, minutes, hours it takes to create something...it's all time. It never falters, never changes. No amount of history or research will ever be able to alter the manner in which time passes by in this great universe of ours. Sure, there's the possibility of alternate realities in which time has a different flow. But the basics are still the same. In that reality, it will always be that way. And in our reality, time will always be the same. It is the one thing on this earth that is truly constant.
In many ways, time is power. We use it to our advantage. Without time, where would we be? Stuck in a limbo falling to pieces at the seams. Trying to come up with a solution as to why we exist. Or would we exist at all? If time didn't exist, would anything exist? The mountains surely wouldn't, since they would never have been forged. The trees would never grow, for there would be nothing to give them a chance to do so. Oxygen wouldn't even have been formed, since the systematic formula couldn't have had the opportunity to be created. So that would suggest that every living thing on the face of the planet would perish without that little thing we take for granted so often.
And we do, don't we? This invisible force that holds us in it's grip means nothing to us most of the time. We wish our lives away so easily, begging for the weekend to arrive. To be a grown up when we're kids. For the day to be over so we can see our loved ones back in the comfort of our own home. We throw time away like it's disposable. We're all guilty of that offence and wouldn't even hesitate to commit the sin again.
So when a moment comes where we are desperate for more time, we're fucked. All that wishing and hoping for time to speed up smacks us right in the face. We wanted this to happen, didn't we? We wanted our lives to hurry up, so what's the difference now? Why is this one moment any different to any other day? That's what Father Time must think to himself up there on his throne in the furthest dimensions of imagination. If you wanted this so badly, why are you fighting it now?
Because it only takes one moment to realise how dangerous your whimsical desires actually are. One fleeting second of time to make you see that life is so very precious. A single sentence can have the biggest impact and make you want to erase any stupid wishes that you made in the past to just elongate your time with them. No matter how much of an adult you feel, you know in that moment in time that there's still so much for you to learn and you can only pray that you'll be given the chance to use this information for good.
And the uncertainty of that outcome is almost unbearable. It drowns out the world around me and keeps me firmly in the last few hours of my life. A judge reliving the account of the accused, watching my expression as I understand the repercussions of my pathetic decisions. Holding me down and forcing me to accept my selfishness, my idiocy, my weakness...
I couldn't move. After hearing those words fall from her lips, I simply turned to stone. Some half-hearted attempt at protecting my already shattered heart from simply giving up on the spot, I'd imagine. Even when they took her away from me, even when Mark sobbed into my arms, I couldn't move. I sat there in that very same spot, my skin and clothes stained red from her wrists and watched each second I'd witnessed pass me by over and over again. No amount of urgency or pleading got through to me. I was a victim to my imagination, even though my imagination was telling me something terrifyingly real.
How can this have happened? How can this have happened to Clara and I? We were happy. We were settled. We were going to be together forever. This wasn't supposed to happen. We weren't supposed to break like this. We weren't supposed to lose control so badly...
No amount of saying it will change what's happened, though. We're not happy. We're not settled. This did happen. We did break. We did lose control.
