There are few things that irritate me more, than being swept into other people’s time streams…
I don’t care much for time… I don’t wear a watch… I pretty much operate within my own timezone…
I guess it comes from a combination of things… years of working shifts, watches that have a tendency to commit suicide when I wear them and the general mayhem of rearing 4 kids that seem to have conspired between themselves to ensure that at least one of them is always awake…. no matter what time of day or night…
But one thing I do know for sure, is that I never miss a deadline…
I very rarely know what day of the week it is, often I’m not even sure which month I’m in and I have even been known to ask – what year is this? Yet somehow or another if I’ve said I’ll do something, it will get done…
Now I find myself in a position where I’m being given a weekly countdown…
And it’s a very strange situation… I completely fail to grasp a sense of urgency when someone informs me that we ONLY have 8 weeks left…
My mind drifts into space as I think 8 weeks… wow… that’s a lifetime…. that’s many lifetimes… I’ve got loads to do before then…
I hear a voice that pulls me back into the room…
So! Have you brought any work with you? Have you written anything yet? Time is running out…
Apparently… jeez…. you’re so stressy! is not the appropriate answer…
Neither is… yes… I’ve written loads actually… oh… for this? the homework? oh no…. not done that…
And last week when asked if I had any material…
Well.. I answered – Yes! Yes I have!
That went down a bit better… The anticipatory smile of my tutor was soon replaced with a grimace and a nose dive into despair when he asked – so where it is?
Oh… it’s at home, there’s no point bringing it in yet, it’s not legible to anybody else right now…
Are you planning on delivering via telepathy? he inquired…
Mmmm…. possibly…. yeah…. that works pretty well for me… Â I mused…
You have 8 weeks to write 10 minutes worth of material, you need to get into the habit of writing…
I suppressed the urge to rupture into raucous laughter… as I didn’t feel much inclined to let anyone else in on my joke…
Get into the habit of writing… ha! it’s a habit of writing that’s gotten me into this mess…
I do plenty of writing and I know that I have very many deadlines to hit before that tiny 10 minute slot even starts to appear on my horizon of urgency… particularly as I already have way too much material… there’s a fractal of scrawls in my book that could fill a few hours… I don’t need any more words, I need to kill a few of my babies off… a comedic cull down to the survival of the wittiest…
I disappeared into idle daydream and again my attention was yanked back…
So… What are you going to do? Sit with some crayons and draw a few pictures? And just hope that words magically appear? You have to write words if you want to write!
What?
Laughter filled the room… Though the focus has moved elsewhere and settled on a chap nursing his notepad…
Hey! I said, what’s so funny about that? That’s pretty much what I do…
Glances swept my way then just as quickly swept away again… though in that brief flit of eye movements, I heard a silence filled with unspoken questions of – Why are you even here? Why aren’t you taking this seriously?
I went back into my bubble… I like my bubble… I can think what I like in there… without interruption…
I pondered a while, what is it with people that if you’re not doing things their way, that they think you are not doing anything? What is this obsession with time? This strange notion that a set amount of time is required for such and such a result… I don’t buy into that… I remember as a child, learning to play instruments and being told to practise for an hour a day… everyday you must spend an hour… I found that a nonsense… there’s very little point in sitting for an hour if you are not in the mood, there’s so much more to be gained by spending 15 minutes playing when you are in the mood… then there’s that whole bending and stretching thing that time does… times when if time thinks that you’re not looking, it will move backwards… sometimes you can catch it out of the corner of your eye as the hand on the clock reverses… then other times hours pass like seconds…
An old friend dropped into my dreamscape…
Yeah… that’s good of you to drop by Mr Rabbit… but really… you want me to take advice from someone who spends all day running around shouting about being late?
Sure… why not?
Because Rabbit… I’m not even convinced you can tell the time… You should trade that fob watch in for a digital, then maybe you’d realise that you have plenty of time…
I see that you’re still argumentative then…
Pardon? Hey Rabbit! How come you are black now?
Black? White? Neither or both… It all depends on where you’re standing…
The pure and blessed way 