Surviving planet Earth

Surviving TIME

Time is a precious commodity.

Every one of us awakens each day with exactly the same amount of it. Some of us know exactly how we are going to spend our time and what portion of it we will spend on a given task.

But that's as far as most of us get. Suddenly, other people also want a bit of your time.

Sentences like, "Can you just...?" or "Would you mind...?" or "Have you got a minute...?" drift your way, eating into your time bank.

Other people somehow expect you to create this elusive thing out of thin air.

"Can you make some time to clear out the cupboard?"

I have to reply that it's a little tricky, what with me not being a deity or anything. Despite my derisory comment, I dig a little deeper into my time bank and manage to extract some small change.

"And while you're there, could you find some time to put up an extra shelf?"

I dig around beneath stacks of old items but completely fail to locate find any extra time. I put up the shelf nontheless. My time bank is feeling lighter already.

Have you ever heard of the Rubaiyat? It was a book of poems written in the 11th century and became famous in the West when, in 1909, a stunning version was commissioned in London. It was to be the most amazing version of not just this book, but of any book ever written - anywhere and at any time and by anyone.

Over 1000 precious and semi-precious stones – turquoises, emeralds, and rubies – were used in making it, including  almost 5000 pieces of leather, silver, ivory, and ebony, and 600 sheets of pure gold leaf.

It took over 4,000 hours to create and the craftsman presumably locked himself in a small room in order to ensure those 4,000 hours were dedicated solely to his creation.

What would I do to have 4,000 hours of time to dedicate to a craft?

Fate is a capricious thing, though. Once this masterpiece was completed, the book was sent to the USA on what was supposed to be the safest mode of transport at the time -  RMS Titanic.

It lies there still, somwhere two and a half miles down in the North Atlantic.

Not to be outmaneouvred by time or fate, a second book was created, presumably with a similar 4,000 hours going into the task, and upon completion was locked securely in a safe, in a vault, beneath was was then the safest building in London to house such an item. A year later, the Nazis so heavily bombed this particular building in this particular street that all that was left of the book was a blackened blob.

8,000 hours with nothing to show for it but a charcoal brickette. There is a moral in there somewhere, to be sure.

So, how do you survive the incessant demands upon your precious time without running out of it?

You could try and lock yourself away, brick up the door and leave a small note outside to the effect that disturbances for ANY reason (not excluding fire, flood, catastrophe, alien invasion or any  combination of these) will be met with the kind of wrath that would make the apocalypse seem a mere walk in the park.

You could also try faking your own demise, complete with eulogy, church service and headstone. Hah! You can't disturb someone who is no longer alive, can you?

Until, that is, you realise that being 'dead' means you automatically lose all other rights, like somewhere to live, a bank card and a job.

Putting your current job description on your resume as 'corpse' won't open the floodgates to offers.

What about sneaking aboard the International Space Station? It wouldn't be easy, but presuming you overcame the very difficult odds, would you then achieve that elusive time you crave? It would appear not. There are apparently so very many tasks to do on board that you would get into time debt.

No time = no time to write. But writing is what I do - everything else is just stuff.

Sometimes it appears to me that the whole world is conspiring to stop me from the only real task that I wil happily throw time at. I mean, call me crazy, but everyone I meet seems to want to extract some minutes from my dwindling time bank. I am even beginning to suspect that the postman is in on the conspiracy to rob me, with his jaunty morning chats about life, the universe and everything inbetween.

So, feeling a little crazed, I have started to hoard time.

How do I do this, you ask?

I steal some of it back.

"Can you make some time to cook a full roast dinner?"

Of course I can, but I will slice and dice as quickly as I can, thus saving me precious minutes.

"Would you just lend me twenty minutes of your time?"

I don't have twenty minutes of time to lend, but hey-ho, I will anyway. But I will get my time back tomorrow when I 'accidentally' forget to set the alarm.

And my hoarded time is slowly saved up, like a little shoe box with loose change in it, carefully stowed under the bed.

Little by little, my hoard will grow until the day will come when I can at last open my box of stored time and finally complete my books which will then be flung headlong into the literary world, stunning the populace with their originality, wit and foresight!

I creep stealthily upstairs and extract my hoarded time box from beneath the bed. For a while I sit with it upon my lap, my maddened eyes glittering with greed and lust, caressing the small box.

My preciousss...

Slowly I lift the lid, an all-consuming crazed and maniacal laughter beginning to issue from my lips. At last! 

At last I have TIME!!!

The metaphorical theatrical music suddenly stops dead.

Empty?

I stare for a moment, not really understanding what I am not seeing.

I turn the box over and tap it, but no time drops out. I even look under the bed in case some of it escaped.

Realisation; it's gone! Someone has taken my carefully saved time and used it for themselves!

I sit for a while longer, pondering sweet, sweet revenge upon the whole of creation. But that would take time, of course, and time is simply something I don't have.

There's nothing for it but to start again.

But this time, I will be more canny. 

This time, my hoard will be hidden somewhere so cunning that it would take an army of detectives to locate it.

As of today, my minutes of stored time will be put into my time machine and sent back to last week.

That will fool everyone! And then I can look into my box whenever I wish, in the sure knowledge that the time inside is mine.

It's all mine, mine I tell you...MINE!

Mwahahaha, muwhahaha, muahahaha, bwahahaha, bwahahahahaha...!