Time

…or the lack thereof.

There’s a Twilight Zone episode, titled “Time Enough At Last”, where Henry Bemis never has time to do the thing he wants to do most… read. Long story short, the gist of the story is that he sneaks away to a basement to read, and when he emerges there has been a nuclear holocaust and he’s left with plenty of books and no one to tell him no. Paradise, at last!

It seems to never end, does it? There never seems to be enough time, does there? Too many things to do, not enough time. It doesn’t help that we consciously add things to do when we know we don’t have enough time already. Yeah, like I need something else to do. I let some things go unattended too much as it is.

Here’s what I want to happen: I want time and the world to STOP! No time progression for a set period of time. A month would be good. Yeah, a month. I could catch up on things, tackle my ‘to do’ list, do all those little nagging things that I have been neglecting… and start fresh.  Since time would be suspended I wouldn’t have all those other outside commitments getting in the way. The calendar is idle. The month wouldn’t disappear, the calendar would pick right up where it left off, and nothing would be lost. That sounds wonderful.

*sigh*… but who am I kidding? The procrastinator in me would take it as an opportunity to do nothing. I’d probably do a lot of napping, playing with the dog, and cruising the internet. I could catch up on all that other stuff later. After all, I wouldn’t be “wasting” any time, right?

Oh, and what happened to Henry Bemis? He immediately broke his glasses, and with no one left to fix them or get new ones, and virtually blind without them, he was left with all the time he wanted and still unable to do what he wanted. The final scene shows him weeping at his situation, and exclaiming, “That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. There was time now. There was—was all the time I needed…! It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” as he was surrounded by books he now can never read.