Tick Tock

The hermit on the hill –

And so the hermit sat upon the mountain top for ages. That’s what the people said. For years and years or decades and decades or even eons and eons depending on whom you asked. But then only the hermit knew that he’d parked his Time (inside his water jug no less) while he meditated. Time for him did not exist. And if time did not exist he did not exist, for how could he exist without ticking along a timeline or crunched in the folds of it’s fabric. So he sat abstract inside the shell of his human form that people thought was him all along.

The Time in his water jug –

But Time can never sit still, it has to Tick! No, no! It can never be still. It has to tickle them timeline sticks. It tried to jiggle some to the right and then jiggle some to the left. And created much confusion as life went backwards and then forwards. People who weren’t born died and people died without knowing they’d been born. Trains were on time and lands lush with greenery until the sun seemed to gobble it all up. It then rained backwards and thundered before lightning struck. It made life devolve and continents to stick. But it still didn’t matter one bit as they seemed oblivious to it even as they lived.

Time then gave a shrug and tried an all round wiggle. The world went round and round as the stars and planets almost crashed into one another. Horrorscopes were cast as wars were won or lost. Some lives went on a whirlwind and others for a roller coaster ride. People said it was the wrath of gods or a curse for bad thoughts.

Time ticked on. No one seemed to know where from it came or whenceforth it would go. They sat with their scientific thoughts and prayers to assorted gods. The wrung their hands and shared their distorted thoughts.

Then Time could take it no more. Out popped the lid and out it came on a limb. It lashed out like a broken cassette tape, the end came first, then the preamble. People who’d never ever seen time on its own and stood in awe at the expanse of it.

Tame it they cried! Hold it they screamed, while we get to the beginning and end of it all. They formed teams to hold the ends and peg it to the ground. They named the start a Big Bang and tried to race to the end. And so it went for ages until there came a guy with static in his hair and a twinkle in his eye who wrung their old thoughts on a clothesline and made a fabric out of Time.

The pebble at their foot-

But no matter how they measured it – by linear foot or by cubic meter – Time stayed elusive. They gave up trying to figure it out and flopped to the ground where the pebble lay still. They never saw the pebble lay it’s time in it’s water jug as it never had a water jug to begin with.

The pebble stayed a pebble with or without time.

Tik tok tik tok.