It seems these days my hours are spent waiting for everything: the water to boil, my email to load, the tomato vine to sprout.
I’ve been thinking about time lately. How pliable it all is. As a kid, you think time stretches on forever. There’s so much distance between you and death. Then, when you’re older, perspective teaches you time accelerates with your own acceleration. Even if your days are slow, the years move fast. I imagine when you’re really ancient, time looks like a border. We’re all headed west, toward that last border. I imagine for myself, discovering the afterlife will be like reaching the Pacific, and I’ll be able to see the true horizon of things.
This is what I think about while standing in line to purchase my groceries. When I’m forced to wait, I’m consumed with impatience.
The man ahead of me puts down a bag of birdseed. He has trouble making a decision as to which pack of gum he should buy. The conveyor belt moves forward but he stays there.
We’re all crippled by choice. There are just too many options out there. Really, is cinnamon gum that different from the spearmint? The regret he will feel from choosing the wrong pack might affect his entire week. At least it seems that way if he’s willing to spend so much time on a single pack of gum.
When I get home I call Calvin to see how everything is. I can’t sleep now that he’s out of the house. He’s gone to the university, finally. I still remember the day he graduated from kindergarten.
His timeline will be different from mine. At some point, I read in a newspaper article, humans will have to choose to be immortal or not. Specialized nanobots will attach to our blood cells to fight infections and repair damaged tissue. That might be a moral battle his generation will face — to choose mortality or to live forever. Me, I’d rather take my allotted time and move on. Risk what else is out there.
Time estranges us from ourselves. Sometimes I look in the mirror, see my features all scrunched up as though being swallowed by some sinkhole beneath my nose and I don’t recognize myself. I still see myself as a young woman. My hair’s short now. The older I get, the shorter I cut it. As a girl, I wore it down to my waist, even though combing it was difficult. I like to swim these days, in my old age. My mornings are spent at the community pool. The short hair is easier to deal with. With long hair, the burden of water lingers with me. I think to myself, “I’ve sacrificed the comb for a bathing suit, and still my days are filled with counting strokes.”
Calvin doesn’t answer his phone. He’s probably off enjoying himself out there. I put a kettle on and listen to talk radio while washing up for dinner. The background noise soothes me. Something about hearing other people’s voices — I don’t feel as lonely. The kettle’s ready. As I wait for my tea to brew, I wonder if I’ll rest well tonight. Some nights, I find myself thinking about just how big space really is. All that expansion. Some nights I think of all my regrets, and wonder if space is like that: No matter how close you think you are to reaching something, no matter how much bigger it seems to you, it’s still millions of miles away, and there’s so much open water to get through. That’s the thing about horizons. You never know when you’ve reached one, and there’s always one more to cross far, far ahead.
— Mason Schoen is a creative writing graduate student.
