There Was a Time

All the time in the world, there was a time when I had all the time in the world. There was a time when the future stretched out further that the past. There was a time when there was time enough for everything. I could take my time. I had time to spare.

Now though the future is here. Some of that future I used to read of, dream of, wonder about, when reading my SF stories has been and gone, and I’m still here waiting for that future to happen.

The past, though, now, stretches further and further back as the future draws closer and slips past me without me being able to take hold of it. The past seems as far out of reach now as the future once did. I read modern contemporary history instead of SF now, still searching for that elusive time that has a place for me within it.

Neither the future nor the past, of course, makes any sense and I mistrust anyone who tries to tell me what the future will bring, or what the past meant. I know there is no grand scheme of things and that everything is cock-up rather than conspiracy, that there are no heavens, hells or utopias, nor designs, fates or purposes; just time after time.

Time just happens to us, that’s all. Time happens to us while we stand here wondering what to do with it all. Time happens to us, right up to that time when it doesn’t, not any more, and we run out of time.