Time

Every now and again, I picture time pulled apart like a big rubber band, down to its minutes and seconds, and I am wiggling my way inside so that it stretches around me in infinity. Time as endless doesn't bother me at all. I find it soothing like tasting my favorite kind of chocolate (dark with nuts in them) or walking home on a beautiful fall evening and my ipod just spit out the perfect song. It's time ignoring the speed limits, and rushing at break-neck velocity that makes me anxious. These days, a year has been condensed into a month, and a month is a small blip on the radar. Weeks are days, and days are the tick tock of the cat's tail clock in your house.

I think in the year 3000, time will be a commodity. It will be sold in the nearest grocery store in tiny packages of minutes or seconds. If you are late to a meeting, all you would have to do is fork over a few million finance units for a small dose of 2 minutes so you can catch that space shuttle you missed to Pluto. Of course, time is finite--these packaged minutes will have to be pulled from someone who is willing to sell their share of time. At first, only bored teenagers will do this, who could use an extra million or two. But in time, the poor will be exploited for their time in a more, sinister literal way. All the rich people will never be stressed or busy, while the poor are always racing against time--not meeting deadlines, aging and then dying faster. There will be nonprofits with names like "Timeless" or public service anouncements that warn against the "exploitive market of minutes". Time will be the new oil. Or even more ominous...babies will be born, who will die instantly because their life-times have been sold into the black market.