There’s an hour of battery left on my laptop, so I had better get everything out quickly this morning. I never really know what is in me these days until I sit down and start to type. An hour is hardly long enough.
58 minutes now; the laptop keeps reminding me that the clock is ticking. It’s like being in one of those spy shows where they have a ticking clock before some new mysterious weapon wipes out a country.
57 minutes before America goes up in flames—which, admittedly, might be better than the slow burn that is happening here presently. The people inside these borders are innocent; and so are the ones outside of the imaginary lines on our maps and roads; it’s not their fault, it’s just that, sometimes things need to change. Sometimes, things need to change. Peaceful change is the idea.
Someone told me once, “You have no enemies.” Over and over again I heard, “You have no enemies.” He wore me out until I started to believe it.
Then, I started to say,”I have no enemies.”
But, this ticking clock sure seems like an enemy this morning.
50 minutes now. Actually, now, my laptop has given me an hour and twenty-three minutes left. How’d it give me more time? That’s backwards . . . I guess now I have more time to save the world from ourselves.
Wait a second, when did I become the savior of the world? That was a mistake by God, I bet. He must’ve been pointing at someone else, when he sent his blessings and curses to me.
An hour and forty-six minutes now—but the percentage of the battery life goes down to 21%. The suspense is a little less exciting then in the movies; but I still feel it.
Will I be able to get everything out before it dies?
I can’t pour gas on the flame when the rain is coming.
I suppose that we always have a time limit; we just never know how much time we have left. Life doesn’t alert us to our dying batteries.
Living life like a spy movie sounds interesting.
Another Mission Impossible comes out in four days, and I honestly still am looking forward to the 7th installment in the franchise. It’s the same plot in every movie—save the world—but it still grips me, somehow.
Of course they save the world. Can you imagine a story where they don’t? Can you imagine a story where the time runs out, and the movie just blacks out, and that’s the end? That’d be hilarious. But where does the story go from there? No where. That’d be the end of stories. Seems weird. It doesn’t seem possible. Stories always exist; as long as there is life, there are stories; and if there is no life, well, then no one will be around to know that; no one will be around to document time; there will be no clock; there will be no stories.
It’s hard to imagine a place without life . . . No nature seems fishy.
Let’s say it is just us humans that go when the new spy weapon detonates; will cats evolve to write stories? Dogs? Dolphins? I feel like some part of nature would evolve enough to tell stories, don’t you?
18%, but now an hour and thirty minutes left.
So weird; the time of death keeps changing. It feels like a parrel to real life.
I was ready to write all day today, but now my plans have changed. I’ll have to read, like a loser.
I only tease you, dear reader. Readers are cool; they pay the bills and have opinions. I need those. I probably need those . . .
I’ve been working through Moby Dick for what feels like years now. Melville is interesting, and I’ve even started to use more semicolons because of that bastard. I don’t even know if I am using them right. Oh well.
I ain’t about to start writing about fish, though. He did that, and left nothing for the rest of us. I have James Joyce and more Dosteky on the menu. It’ll just take me another lifetime to finish Dick, then, onto the next author.
“But Chet, another lifetime isn’t guaranteed.” say’s you.
This hour has stretched out into infinity for me; so who are you to tell me what’s possible?
Aye, yes, you’re my reader. You’re my interpreter. You’re my bills. And you also don’t exist to me.
You really don’t think you’ll hear from me in the next life? You’ve underestimated me, dear reader. The flame in my chest is part of the internal fire; it’ll come back as a spark, and then be called to save the world again. These are how all my lives go.
Hey, guess what I realized? When my laptop dies, I can just write with my phone. See?
My spark can never die. Whatever I don’t finish in this life, I’ll just remember to do in the next one.
I’ll just finish it on my phone.
The spark reminds my soul of who I am; in this life, and in all of my lives, it finds me and pulls me.
Fuck Melville; I can keep creating.
Yay.
There will always be another story. It goes on and on and on.
-C.H. 7/10/23