The Scrambled Philosophies That I Call Thoughts

Clockwork Minds

"What do you think about?" her old friend inquired. "I've always wondered."

She leaned back in her chair and sighed. "I think about...time. My past, the present, the future, too." She frowned. "Yeah, I think about it a lot."

"But what about it? Events in your life?" her friend questioned.

By then, the sounds were muted, and inspiration fading, but she frowned and answered as best she could. "No, just the idea in general, really." She sighed. "The past, it's all we have. It's our rock. Constant, solid, always there whether we like it or not. And it's constantly evolving. I mean, right now we have more past than we did two seconds ago. And we really get to determine it, you know?"

The brow of her best friend—almost a sister, really—furrowed. "We get to determine our pasts? That's absurd," she scoffed, then sighed. "But that doesn't mean I'm not curious. What do you mean? Elaborate."

She stared at the wall as she spoke, almost as if she were answering it a question. It had always been easier for her that way.
"We get to determine our past by what we do in the present. We can never go back, of course, but think about it. If you'd never asked me what I think about, I wouldn't be telling you this, now. And that moment was the present, then, and this conversation was in the future. But right now, you asking the question is in the past, and this conversation is the present—which is nothing, yet somehow everything, may I add. The present, I mean."

"So what about the future?" the girl questioned relentlessly. "Do we change it with what we do in the present?"

Though sounds were much too loud at this point, she let out a wild laugh. "Silly girl," she sneered, "I just said that the present is negligible. It's hardly anything. Such a small increment in time, that it barely exists."

"So how does our future get to be the way it is—I mean, the way it will be?" countered the girl.

She glanced up at her friend. "'With the heart of a child and the wit of a fool, it's a wonder I don't try and build a wall around you...'"she quoted, then lowered her gaze to the floor, and shook her head. She sighed. "Don't you know? The future is now..."

"Yeah?" the girl asked.

"Yeah." she responded, and smiled wryly. "Guess it's all in the complexities of time..."

And with that, she was gone.