I’ve said it before: Time makes a sound as it rushes past our ears. But I’ve also maintained that the sound is so low it cannot be heard, except by Time itself. The sound made by Time is, to our ears, identical to silence. I wish I could rest on an extraordinarily—perfectly—comfortable bed in an absolutely dark room and hear only the sound made by Time. The sound of bed sheets crinkling would not disturb me—nor would the blood coursing through my veins nor the inaudible hiss of my breath—because the impossibly low volume of the sound of Time would overwhelm all other sounds. Yet, because the sound of Time is so incomprehensibly low, I would not hear it. A shroud of silence would surround me. And that shroud would muffle all my other senses to the extent that they would effectively disappear. I would feel nothing, see nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing…my thoughts, too, would become absolutely dormant. I would become nonresponsive to my sensory environment, mirroring the experience of death. But, of course, one cannot “experience” death; my inability to express or explain the complete absence of experience would contradict my existence. I would not know it, though, because knowledge requires the ability to think and to experience one’s existence, which I could not do. Nor would I be able to remember…even if I were removed from that state of non-existence…because memories (and even dreams) require experiences to serve as their foundations. Now, I wonder, if we had no means to measure its presence or its passing, would Time exist? Is Time an imaginary boundary that exists only in the dark corners of our mind?
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You may have guessed I have lost my mind. I think I’ll find it in the Chinese leftovers from yesterday’s lunch. Yes, an inauthentic Chinese breakfast, modified for the Arkansan palate and the tastes of a man whose renunciation of his Texas birthright citizenship grows more appealing with each passing legal assault on human rights. First, I’ll take in breakfast, then I’ll go engage in conversation with a doctor who deals in curative radio waves. I need more sleep, though, so perhaps I will fall asleep in the car on the way to the radio station.
