A Beginning

"I'm tired. I'm tired of rushing from place to place in an endless flow of activity; in a whirlwind of effort and strain. I want to sit. I want to simply sit and think." Fedor reflected. And so he did just that. He sat down on his throne, a large hardwood oak chair in the corner of his small rented room and began to think, meaning to continue thinking for the entirety of his life, only planning to pause to eat and rest.

         “Life is strange indeed” he began in rapture and terror. This was usually the climax of Fedor’s dizzying pontificating but this time it was how he began. It started with an overheard conversation between a learned french noble and a rather dim-witted american political figure at a party he had attended that night. The dignified french noble loved to share interesting intellectual bits he had picked up over the years and was relaying one of his favorites just then on the subject of the relativity of time as one ages. “It’s somewhat unsettling really, the way we age I mean. Take my one year-old nephew for example, the innocent child he is. The year he has lived is the longest span of time he has ever experienced; one year has made up the totality of his life. That span of time is an eternity to him. In a year he will have been on this earth but two years, the most recent year making up half of his life. It will continue on this way, as it does for all of us of course, that after three years, one year will be equivalent to one-third of his life and after forty, twelve months is but one-fortieth of life, a small fraction at that!” he began in his usual frantic way of speaking (he had once given a lecture so passionately that he fainted on the spot due to a lack of oxygen). Already panting he continued, “So it continues like this you see, until one realizes suddenly and painfully that every year is getting shorter and shorter, compounding on its acceleration from one second to the next; time is quickening right up until your last second alive, which will be the shortest second you ever experience. Not literally you see but relatively, you must understand this. Time accelerates at a fearfully frightening pace now you realize, does it scare you? No, no of course it does not, we cannot be worried with such nonsense in our busy lives, but it is quite an interesting thought indeed, just as-” and he was cut off (maybe for the best, as he was starting to get purple in the face) by the american he was speaking at, exclaiming, “The French spend such time on these silly thoughts, I haven’t the time for such nonsense.” Then rushed off to gorge himself on the food that was just then being brought out. The American lived from one impulse to the next, as many do. Oblivious to everything except the rhythmic dull drumming that carries us all from one day to the next.  

Fedor wanted the drumming to stop.

Reviews

[Pankaj Mandal]

great. “Life is strange indeed”

[Joseph Morrow]

Thank you much for your review

[Coyote Poetry]

You are a outstanding writer. Please send read requests. I enjoy how you create thoughts and interesting situation. Thank you for sharing your amazing work.
Coyote

[Joseph Morrow]

Thank you so much for your support, it is much appreciated.

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome.