That time is abstract could not be more clear when you’re nearing the end of a PhD.
I’m sitting here in the library with Marga. She’s a year closer to the light than me and has spent more hours in the library this week than in her house. I feel inspired and so, I join her. We stare into space, write a few words, babble an unfinished thought to the other, zombie-walk to the bathroom, and close our eyes every 20mins (we have one of those anti-eye-straining apps on our computers). So the only duration of time we are aware of is that 20 mins have passed since the last time we closed our eyes. And even then only because the computer forces us to, by making the screen opaque with a colour of our choice. I chose green because it doesn’t matter, my eyes are supposed to be closed anyway. We eat when we are hungry, usually around noon. Day 2. We’ve been here for three hours now. Or has it been six? Maybe five? We said we would work until 2030hrs. How much longer will that be? I feel lost and confused, like a child holding cotton candy with the hand that slipped from her parent’s at a fair, except I don’t even have the comfort of cotton candy. Without looking at my watch or the wall clock or the tiny numbers at the bottom of my laptop screen, I am unable to tell time. Why does it feel like we’ve been sitting here for hours, and then why does it almost immediately feel like we could use a few more hours? Time sort of hovers around, suddenly zooms ahead, then comes back and looms over our shoulders. This seems to happen more often now than before, in all likelihood because we have more to do and finish now than before. I look up at her sitting across the table from me, our laptops back-to-back, and a vision fills my head for a few seconds. I see us sitting here at this table forever, at this exact spot until the end of time. Our twin lunch bags stand next to each other on the table, we are stuck to the chairs, our fingers to the keyboard and our eyes fixed ahead. I would like time to end about now, if you don’t mind.
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