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Stuck in Time
I just checked my watch for the seventh time and it hasn't changed. I sat
down, put my security card into the slot on the keyboard, typed in my PIN
and time stopped. They'll find me later today, take me out, pack up my
books and send them to Anne, but I won't know that.
I'm stuck in time. I always wondered what it's like to die. Some people
who died say it's like entering a tunnel with a bright light at the end, but
those are people who came back. Maybe that's not what it's really like,
just a trick their minds played on them when they were almost dead.
Maybe it would be different if I died in my sleep rather than here at my
desk starting another work day or in an accident, but for me, time has just
stopped. I should have retired when I had the chance. I could have
traveled, not by plane, because plane travel is a hassle, sitting in cramped
seats taking my shoes off to go through security. I would drive, take my
time, go all around the country and visit places I've been before, if
they're still there.
North Dakota probably hasn't changed much, but New York has been torn down
piecemeal and rebuilt several times, sometimes just to add waterfalls under
the Brooklyn Bridge and on Governor's Island for a few months. I'd probably
never find most of the people I knew and if I did, they'd be changed.
Why am I still sitting here? I should step into the hall, go out to the
parking lot, get in my car and start traveling, but I'm not sure anything is
out there. I'll sit here and wait a little bit longer. I have plenty of
time. It's been eight a.m. for hours now, maybe days. I've lost track of
time.
So what happens now? Do I forget, go back into a womb, any womb, maybe not
even a womb, maybe an insect egg, and start again? Do I forget everything?
Or do I remember and does everything change around me, and I step out into
another time, as me, but with a different past and future, on a path I
didn't follow before or encounter yet, then follow an alternate string in
the universe?
Is anyone listening? Am I just going to sit here? Hello? That's it, isn't
it? I'm a dead file. My connection to the cosmic operating system has been
lost. I just stay here until I'm erased. Well, I hope it's quick. I never
did like waiting. Say, could you turn my mind off? As if you care.
John A. Ward was born on Staten Island, attended Wagner College in the early 60's,
sold his first poem to Leatherneck magazine, and became a scientist. He is now in San Antonio
running, writing and living with his dance partner. He has published in Doorknobs & Bodypaint,
Clockwise Cat, Apollo s Lyre, Toasted Cheese, Green Tricycle, Alighted Ezine, Lit Bits, Cenotaph Pocket Edition,
The San Antonio Express-News, Antithesis Common, Wild Child, Holy Cuspidor, Idlewheel, Sentence, Sun Poetic Times,
Byline, Quirk, ken*again, R-KV-R-Y, The Smoking Poet, Long Story Short, Cautionary Tale and The Rose & Thorn.
Links to his work can be found at Web Site.
Email: John A. Ward
Email: John A. Ward
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