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Description
I stirred the mixture lazily with a butter knife. It clung to the dulled blade but slowly slipped away, into the pan. I had been using a whisk earlier, but it nearly broke, so I stopped. Cooking utensils are so unreliable nowadays.

The timer blinked 5:52 and then 5:51. A second gone, just like that. Fly away!

I once had the funniest thought.

If there were some sort of spell to take a second off the lives of everyone on the planet, and stick those seconds onto your own life span, you'd live around an extra 223 years. Of course, something like that could never happen. But isn't that odd? Most people would never miss a single second like that. It isn't important.

In stories, though, important things are always happening with people on their deathbeds, and people on deathbeds, it seems, need as much time as they can get their hands on. It's like they're using the last of their strength to speak. "Oh, I killed such and such!" or "There's something you have to promise me...." At least, that's what people in movies are like. Great-grandpa never said anything so dramatic, even as he lay dying. He didn't say much when he was dead, either, but I guess that's natural. It's true that dead people look like they're sleeping, except it would only take a few seconds or so to realize said corpse does not draw breath.

Anyway.

Would a mother care if her newborn child had just a few more seconds, much less a measly one? Well, probably. Maybe. I don't have kids or understand what a mother might be thinking in that situation, how am I supposed to know? I don't know what can be done in a second, besides the negative things. You know, shoot a guy, say something terrible you can never take back, pass by an opportunity, forget a dream, miss the green light. So many awful things are easily accomplished, whether you're helped along by a guy driving ten miles under the speed limit or whether you manage to fuck everything up independently.

But positive things, I think, can be done in a second, too, but it's hard to think of some. Positive things are great and all, but they have much less impact than negative things, and are therefore less memorable. My life, so far, has been composed of roughly 60% positive, 30% neutral, and 10% negative moments. See, most of the time, I'm doing pretty okay. I mean, recently, I don't feel bad, but I don't really feel good, ether. It's alright, I guess.

Frankly, however, I'm always forgetting things, especially the kinds of things people secretly want me to remember. Objectively, this is unfortunate. Sometimes, it is sad. Recently, the neutral chunk of my life (which is pie in this analogy, obviously) has grown quite large. In the last year, I think, a neutral disposition has been settling in me. Of course, I laugh and smile and all that, and I frown and get angry and all that, but most of the time it's like seconds are ticking away and there is quite literally nothing stirring in my head or heart. I used to be so emotional all the time. But while I'm just sitting around not thinking, seconds no longer matter to me.

But I guess a dying baby can cry pitifully one more second (or struggle to breathe), and someone dying elsewhere can finish saying what they think needs to be said, or someone can spend one more second feeling happy (or sad), or feeling nothing in particular.

Even as I write this, I am feeling spectacularly empty. Unmoved. Is this how a reader experiences this rant? Or is it because I am tired? I am tired. It is quite late at night. If I never had to sleep, that would be incredible. Ah, of course it is not possible. Das geht nicht. I'd have more time to read or procrastinate or something.

The timer went off a long time ago.

"Let it freeze overnight," the recipe says....

Description
I stirred the mixture lazily with a butter knife. It clung to the dulled blade but slowly slipped away, into the pan. I had been using a whisk earlier, but it nearly broke, so I stopped. Cooking utensils are so unreliable nowadays.

The timer blinked 5:52 and then 5:51. A second gone, just like that. Fly away!

I once had the funniest thought.

If there were some sort of spell to take a second off the lives of everyone on the planet, and stick those seconds onto your own life span, you'd live around an extra 223 years. Of course, something like that could never happen. But isn't that odd? Most people would never miss a single second like that. It isn't important.

In stories, though, important things are always happening with people on their deathbeds, and people on deathbeds, it seems, need as much time as they can get their hands on. It's like they're using the last of their strength to speak. "Oh, I killed such and such!" or "There's something you have to promise me...." At least, that's what people in movies are like. Great-grandpa never said anything so dramatic, even as he lay dying. He didn't say much when he was dead, either, but I guess that's natural. It's true that dead people look like they're sleeping, except it would only take a few seconds or so to realize said corpse does not draw breath.

Anyway.

Would a mother care if her newborn child had just a few more seconds, much less a measly one? Well, probably. Maybe. I don't have kids or understand what a mother might be thinking in that situation, how am I supposed to know? I don't know what can be done in a second, besides the negative things. You know, shoot a guy, say something terrible you can never take back, pass by an opportunity, forget a dream, miss the green light. So many awful things are easily accomplished, whether you're helped along by a guy driving ten miles under the speed limit or whether you manage to fuck everything up independently.

But positive things, I think, can be done in a second, too, but it's hard to think of some. Positive things are great and all, but they have much less impact than negative things, and are therefore less memorable. My life, so far, has been composed of roughly 60% positive, 30% neutral, and 10% negative moments. See, most of the time, I'm doing pretty okay. I mean, recently, I don't feel bad, but I don't really feel good, ether. It's alright, I guess.

Frankly, however, I'm always forgetting things, especially the kinds of things people secretly want me to remember. Objectively, this is unfortunate. Sometimes, it is sad. Recently, the neutral chunk of my life (which is pie in this analogy, obviously) has grown quite large. In the last year, I think, a neutral disposition has been settling in me. Of course, I laugh and smile and all that, and I frown and get angry and all that, but most of the time it's like seconds are ticking away and there is quite literally nothing stirring in my head or heart. I used to be so emotional all the time. But while I'm just sitting around not thinking, seconds no longer matter to me.

But I guess a dying baby can cry pitifully one more second (or struggle to breathe), and someone dying elsewhere can finish saying what they think needs to be said, or someone can spend one more second feeling happy (or sad), or feeling nothing in particular.

Even as I write this, I am feeling spectacularly empty. Unmoved. Is this how a reader experiences this rant? Or is it because I am tired? I am tired. It is quite late at night. If I never had to sleep, that would be incredible. Ah, of course it is not possible. Das geht nicht. I'd have more time to read or procrastinate or something.

The timer went off a long time ago.

"Let it freeze overnight," the recipe says....