The Relative Weave

Things come unglued. Where I began is not where I am, is not where I will be. No, that's not right. Let me start again.

I come unglued. I am unstuck from where I was, not fixed where I am, am not where I will be. Yes, that's better. I am somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and it is very dark. I am somewhat delusional. There are several factors contributing to my delusional state. First, I am sleep deprived. I have no reference for what time it is. No, that's not right. It is more correct to say that I have no reference for where I fit into time. Second, an army of microbes has taken up residence in my gut, though I don't know this yet. Not at this point in time, this weave, this warp, this moment overlapping all the other moments. Third, my left eye has become host to a colony of viruses. This I am aware of, though I am trying to deny it, trying to force myself back to a time when the viruses lived somewhere else. It is not working. Since I have nothing but time, I begin to muse on the nature of time. I am alone at night on a plane over the mid-Atlantic. Musing on the nature of time, at such a time, is a mistake.

Time can get weird. For everyday life, we humans use time as a measuring device, a metronome that remains constant. Tick-tock, tick-tock. The old joke tells us that time is how humans keep everything from happening at once. Funny. Einstein would have laughed his brainy-butt off at that one. The trouble is, time ain't. Constant that is. Two observers of the same phenomena, each moving at different velocities relative to the observed phenomena, will see different things. Both observers will be correct in their observations. You do not have to believe me. I am delusional, remember? But you can believe Einstein.

I am over the mid-Atlantic, in the dark, feverish and deluded. On the tiny screen in front of me a movie is playing. I am not watching it. Not really. I am casting my addled brain back and forth over the weave and warp of recent time. Here is another wrinkle, another bit of mental yarn for my brain-paw to play with. I know, without a doubt, that there is more to the relativity of time than Einstein's brilliant theory. There is also the human brain's ability to alter perception of time. I know this because I have experienced it.

I am on the racetrack at Pacific Raceways. I am coming down the straight at full chat, tucked tight. Coming into Turn Two, my favorite turn, I lean left, dropping down smoothly, left knee just starting to skim the asphalt. All is well, this is my line, the bike is good, I am good, here we go. What I do not know is that a very light sprinkle of rain passed over this end of the track since the last lap. The tiniest sprinkle, just a dab of moisture. Just enough water to reduce the friction component by a few percentage points. Just enough to prevent going through the turn at full race velocity.  Quite suddenly I am without my little motorcycle. I am sliding across the vast expanse of Turn Two, heading for the gravel run-out. This is when it happens. Time goes all wonky. It slows way, way down.

I am sliding on my back in a full-leather racing suit. My thoughts are crystal-clear. Where is the bike? Ah, good, I am clear of if. That would hurt; it sucks to get hit by the bike. Hmm, my left ass-cheek seems to be getting warm from the friction against the asphalt. I should roll a tiny bit right, but not too much. I don't want to start a tumble. That's better. Look, here comes the gravel. Remember not to stand up until we are at a complete stop. Feet first, here we go, into the gravel. Hey, there is the corner worker running over, waving his flag. Right, we must have stopped moving because the corner guy is standing next to us. Time to stand up and go find the bike.

I have seen real-time video of my low-side crash. The racer behind me had a Go-Pro camera mounted on his helmet. In the video, I shoot out of the frame like a leather-clad clown fired from a circus cannon. Zing! I am a blur flashing across the pavement like a comet. And yet, some part of my brain slowed the events down to a manageable pace, a calm, processable progression. A fluke you say, a trick of memory. But wait, there is more.

I am suspended in thin air. No, I am not on a plane anymore. Above me is a narrow steel aqueduct. Below me is more thin air, about two hundred feet of it, the void of a canyon, which the aqueduct spans. I have just fallen from the aqueduct. I can see my mountain bike on the edge of the steel structure, caught on the wire that threw me off balance and into the thin air that I am now suspended in. I know that the rock floor of the canyon is below me, even though I cannot see it. And I know that I am going to die. Time, that elusive construct that we are mulling over, has stopped. There is only the sky, blue and wonderful. Behind the aqueduct, the sharp relief of the Sierras rise into the blue. Seeming to come from all around me, there is a voice. The voice has a deep resonance, a calm, firm tone. And the voice says "This is it." Then a funny thing happens. Time speeds up. A lot. Things happen very, very fast. The aqueduct rushes away, followed by an all-encompassing flash of white light. The blast of light is accompanied by a cracking sound, which is me hitting a rock ledge. The rock ledge juts out into the void like the hand of providence. Granite, coarse grained, infused with lines of quartz, it is the most amazing scarp of rock on the planet. A bit later on, when the view of that most beautiful sky comes back, everything hurts. A lot. Funny thing, time. Ha Ha Ha.

I am standing on a concrete landing at the bottom of a set of wooden stairs. The stairs lead upwards to the front door of a cute, blue bungalow. This is where I lived until today. The front door is open. Standing in the front door is my soon-to-be ex-wife. Just in front of the top step are a collection of brown PCC grocery bags, bags that contain my belongings. These random belongings have been hastily thrown into the paper bags. Paper bags make crappy luggage. Below me, in the driveway, is my little pickup truck. In the bed of the truck is a jumble of clothes still on hangers, a few bits of furniture, a frozen still-life of perceived necessity.

Here's the thing: for everyone else in this tableau, time is still moving along: tick-tock, tick-tock. For me, it has stopped. It is a beautiful, sunny morning. The nice neighbors in our nice neighborhood are doing nice things to their flowers. It is a quiet street, so the noise of what is happening rolls across their carefully tended flower beds and yards. I am frozen where I stand. My soon-to-be ex-wife has her arms raised. The sun is behind her as I look up the stairs. She is illuminated, an avenging angel, backlit. Her voice is shrieking, rising to the hum of a cicada, attaining the pure pitch of a castrato singing an aria. I can see all of it at the same time, as if perched on a camera gantry above the street. The clip, snip sound of the nice neighbor's garden shears, the sound of a bare foot kicking a paper bag, the sound of paper tearing as the bag hits the third step down, and over it all that high pure note hangs in the air. I can hear the desperate attempts of the neighbors not to hear what is going on. That pure high note flows out, carries with it the threat of torn relationships and severed lives. Please, please, let the threat pass our house. I can hear their thoughts as they concentrate on the flower in front of them, concentrate on not hearing. The next paper bag begins its journey down the stairs. A dull kick, paper tearing, random items bouncing off of wooden stairs, coming to rest on the concrete landing.

Then I am back on the landing. The ghost of Raymond Carver is standing next to me. He puts an arm across my shoulder. I'm glad for the company. As the scattered bits of the last bag hit the concrete, the aria ceases. There is the slam of a door. Everything is quiet. Raymond Carver's ghost lets out a long slow laugh. "Jesus, I'm glad that's over," he says. From the adjacent yards, the neighbors pause, waiting to hear my response. Everything is very, very, quiet. The ghost give my shoulder a friendly squeeze. "Time to go, Kid. You're making the natives restless." And he vanishes.  I begin scooping up my scattered crap, tossing it into the back of the truck. A mattress thrown over the top of it all serves as a restraint. I drive away. No one is sorry to see me go. Time resumes a normal pace. Tick-tock.

I am somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and it is very dark. I am somewhat delusional. I am passing through time relative to three points: where I started, where I am, and where I will be. Ecuador, somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, and Europe. Not the best thing to dwell on in mid-flight.

So what is it, this fabric we call Time? I can perceive time as through a tunnel, linear and directional. It can be slowed to a pace that is manageable, despite the velocity observed by others. I can be frozen in Time, as a fly trapped in amber. And, as I know from experience, I can step outside of time, watching it flow past me. I don't have any real answers, of course. I'm not Albert Einstein. I'm not Raymond Carver, either. I suspect that time is something akin to Cosmic Silly Putty. It can be stretched, rolled, twisted, and can probably lift ghostly images from the grainy four-color printed pictures in the Sunday funnies.

Do you have a story about experiencing altered time? I'd love to hear it. In the meantime, I will continue to slide back and forth along the continuum. Or spiral. Or whatever. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Ed. note:
Marco is safely back in Vienna, where he should be working on the draft of his third novel, rather than on silly blog posts. He remains delusional, but that has nothing to to with time. Oh, in case you were wondering, the docs have given him both gastrointestinal antibiotics and antibiotic eye-drops. It is assumed that he will recover from all save the aforementioned delusion issues. Marco loves comments. If you so desire, you can leave one below. We, and he, thank you for your understanding.