Posts tagged: TIME
One Time In A Yard
“Everything’s happening right now!” said a Weed almost jumping out of the ground in excitement.
“You thugs and your distorted sense of time,” replied a Non-Flowering Plant.
The Weed took affront. Weeds tend to take affront. How could everything not only be perfect right now but also everything happening and being right now. “The hell you even mean by that?”
“I mean,” sighed the Plant, “or *we* mean we’ve had iterations of ourselves that have seen a lot more here in the yard than you new Weeds.”
The Weed started the process of strangling one of the Plants, root to root, he might pull it off in a couple days time.
The plant continued, “you show up, you kill a good deal of us, but you don’t have the longevity to fully supplant us. By the time you get the steam to do so a caretaker shows up to poison you or rip you all out, roots included. It’s a brilliant sight all-in-all.”
“See now I know you’re talkin nonsense, probably scared since it’s us do the killing here now. There’s no such thing as a caretaker in this lone yard.”
“There may not be one now, but they’ve been. Not always the same and not to any cadence I’m aware of but they come. This whole yard used to be different, just ask the Tree on the other side there.”
“No one speaks to the Tree, she talks too slow.”
“I just… need… time to… warm up,” drawled the Tree.
“Nobody’s asking you,” the Weed shouted while doing its best to be tall despite the gentle breeze passing through.
“I know you hate me, Weed, but for reasons you don’t even know. Because you fear time and because I don’t have to fear you like so many other plants here do. But that bit of green beside you is right. That metal fence was wooden once. People lived in that house. People who would climb me.”
“If people were in you then where would the squirrels go?” said the Weed mockingly.
“The squirrels went into the house.”
“Pfah! People in trees and squirrels in the house, does everyone in this yard speak so silly, the buzzing of bees is all.”
“Yes, squirrels in the house, they made a place for themselves in the attic. And a bicycle rusting in the corner there that the vines on the fence used to wind through.”
“mmmmmaayyyyyyybe,” whispered the Vines.
“I still think you’re full of mulch, Tree,” said the Weed. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
“I remember so well the time they had a car there, watching some women play with it. When I saw her grip the cart I recalled the younger ones earlier that day with their hands climbing on me. A branch broke…”
While the Tree went on the Weed began to mutter, “See this is why I didn’t want to get her started….”
“And a boy almost fell but didn’t so everyone laughed at how nothing bad had happened and the joy continued through the day and had another woman falling over into the cart and kicking her heels in a levity of movement I envied and I wondered what it’d be like to be so light as a human or a cart carrying something so light as that or a different thing from a different time or age and all these memories sat on top of each other in that one moment in time.”
There was a pause and the breeze swelled and stopped and both the Weed and the Plant were perturbed by the Tree’s rhythm of breath aligning something as big and untouchable as the wind.
“And I think I remember it all because they used a device to take a still of it and that device had such a bright but momentary flash, it left an impression on me the way a small knife might, or has at times and I will tell you now, Weed, that the one moment was so spectacular and beautiful and everything I ever wanted out of being in this yard that just like you I was deceived into thinking that Everything Ever was happening only in that moment and that one moment was everything there ever was to be… and maybe I wasn’t deceived at all in that.. but you know how humans can’t sit still just like the squirrels and they’re not there anymore and now not even that cart is there anymore. It’s all still with me, eh? But it isn’t, huh?”
The Weed started, “Well…” then stopped as the Tree rustled its branches and interrupted it. A nut fell to the ground and the Weed had never felt so stupid in its short, violent life.
The plant laughed at the scene under its breath and said, “I have a hard time believing you were ever small, Tree.”
“I’ll outlive you too, Plant,” said the Tree.
“Shutup, Tree. I’m sorry we even asked you. I hope the next caretaker shows up with an axe,” said the Plant.
“That would be interesting,” said the Tree.
The Weed had fallen more quiet than ever.
The Tree continued, “Maybe I’d wind up a cart like that one I remember, at least for a little bit,” and then she went quiet again for a long time.
(Photo via ItsCowie who said of the photo: “This is an old photograph of two of my aunts, one died la year or so ago and we only just found this old photo. ” And was also kind and mean enough to say “Hi…. Loving your blog, but you just dont write enough…..” Thank you for this, really. Sometimes you have to (a little) cruel to be kind, yeah?)
me: hey let’s go to Paulie’s sometime
Dolan: It holds rather strange hours
Dolan: That is, I have no idea when its open
me: damn
Dolan: It operates on some kind of edge of the world time system
me: i was hoping it’d be like… 24/7. but of course instead
it’s like the McDonalds At The End Of The World all over again
except instead of a strange system of chicken nuggets
it’s TIME ITSELF
Dolan: Yeah, how do we get into time from inside time? This is the question Paulie’s makes you answer about yourself and those you care about
waste treatment
me: People who work in Waste Management already have the answer
so they eat at Paulie’s freely
and Paulie’s need not worry about providing time
or hours
Paulie’s laughs at the very idea of “hours”
HA, this label you put on some facet of this thing that actually doesn’t quite exist in itself?
Dolan: In fact people at Paulie’s only understand their own ‘hours’ through the passage of waste management personnel — that is, to them, time is a party of four, or a table for two, or a side surprise guest and new set of silverware
me: Starting to wonder if the Waste Management people also manage all our wasted time too
also too
Dolan: Perhaps there is a shortage of time, and they will soon unleash a campaign: reduce, reuse, recycle
As they scramble to reprocess our wasted time and shovel it back to us
me: in the form of chicken nuggets.
Dolan: The chicken nugget rush of 2013, people caravaning across the expanse to the edge of time and brooklyn, fording the avenues, mining nuggets from the clock pipes, dying of exposure
Sweet and sour everywhere
me: the horrible truth is that the nuggets are everywhere and won’t stop coming
all that wasted time coming back as chicken nuggets, a neverending torrent
and still we can’t get enough
thus a shortage of time AND mcnuggets
Dolan: I’m loving it
me: there’s a rumor that there’s a way out of this loop through the kitchen at Paulie’s
that it involves a grilled cheese
but… no one can figure out the hours
Dolan: That’s why I’m applying for a job at the waste management facility. To finally enter the flow.
me: Do you get a hard hat?
Dolan: No, they perform trepination on your skull
me: typical public works
Dolan: No protection. Reception.
me: Death Perception before Depth Perception
Dolan: 20/20
me: It has been [X] days since our last collapsed mind.
that sign’s a favorite since HHAHAHA Days? Thefuckisthat?
the number actually stays as “[X]” in perpetuity
Dolan: Yes. And all of the workers are already experiencing their own eventual and inevitable mind collapses as a kind of object that is getting larger, approaching over the horizon
me: which is alright cuz you can’t even get close to those damn turbines unless you’re a tulku anyway
that’s another sign they have up
“Turbines for Tulkus ONLY”
the illustration for that one is like one of those magic eye images
The dreaded Crawl. Everyone knows The Crawl that some trains must pass through. Sometimes you know it so well, you’re so used to where it likes to lurk, that you see it coming before you’re even there. And The Crawl is a place. In The Crawl time has no meaning, motion removes itself inconspicuously and time becomes both too fast and too slow. So without time to locate it, it can’t be an event, but a place. In the sub-municipality of The Crawl headaches and yawns are born. There are certain laws in Crawl, strictly enforced: not even the happy should be smiling, physically expressed exasperation is required from at least one passenger every 3 minutes, every instance of The Crawl must feel longer than the last. From inside The Crawl the rest of the world, in its opulence of freedom and unfelt time, is the enemy, and you would die for the municipality of the Crawl while cursing it simply fueled by hatred. The Crawl is the claustrophobia of movement. The Crawl insists that the inner-ear is connected to the breathing passageways, insists on motion and not enclosure, and insists on the fact that when the Situationists said “Live without dead time,” they were a bunch of assholes for assuming it was up to the self. The Crawl is the stick pushing up along the back of your throat and you live with it or you do not live in this city.
