Days

It seems the days have slipped away like water through a sieve. Looking back into the sink they seem somewhat foreshortened, as though they went quicker than they did. It's a trick of the light, at least, they taught us that in school. And it is, it truly is. Each second took as long as every second has ever taken and the days of our childhood passed no slower, nor any faster. Tell yourself that. Tell yourself that though the year is almost gone it was nonetheless a year of as many seconds, minutes, hours as any other. That you were bored for hours. That you waited in queues for hours, that you were happy and sad and happy again for hours and hours and hours. In your head it's flattened down into some kind of box of photos and you'll say, 'where did the year go?' because that's what we always say. Well don't say it. I won't say it. I won't say it now and I won't say it on my dying day. I refuse to see time that way.

I will see it as a walk in the mountains. The path ahead looks long but once it's done I'll look back and, far below, I'll see where I started from. Foreshortened by the distance. But I'll know how far I've come.