Time Travel
I have always liked Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim and the idea of being unstuck in time. Of course, I realize it’s a work of fiction, but it’s appealing. So, I still try, and I think I’m getting close. How? By slowing down. Yesterday, on my drive into Houston for two days of graduation festivities I meandered along the highway between Austin and Houston simply doing the speed limit. I never passed anyone, well maybe one or two. Mostly it was just cars and cars and cars streaming by, seemingly as fast as they could go.
About halfway through the trip, I started to feel invisible, and my time was not their time because I had dropped out of it and now, I was on the world’s time, which is a lot slower and long lasting. All those people, passing me by, flying to somewhere fast were the equivalent of fruit flies being born, living, and dying in 24-hours, noticing nothing of the world around them except the next meal, sleep and sex. I wondered how I did it for so long. Probably a congenital defect, or maybe that’s the program.
Anyway, after the long drive I arrived and was invited by my grandson to join him on another trip, this time to a bookstore. Off we went. It added to the drive, but I wasn’t really tired and two or three hours alone with my grandson seemed promising. It was. We talked of literature and life and family, bought a book, and just generally had some two-guy time, which was rewarding. When we got back home. I ate a late meal and went off to bed. Now, here we are, me and time, trundling along together. Still slow, still inevitable, walking with the ancient world waiting on the next epoch.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale