Stop Watch

“I hate this time of night.”

“And doesn’t need your criticism.”

“So?’ H.T. said

“Fair point. Can I ask you something? It’s not your work-related, I swear.”

“I’m still here,” H.T. said, not looking at me but holding her aim true.

“We’re moving right now, hundreds of thousands of miles an hour, to put us on a tight schedule of single units measurements that are twenty-three hours, fifty-seven minutes, and four-point nine seconds long. Thus a leap year. We got it wrong; then again, the chaos theory is as unreliability as the name suggests and most likely our real god. more interesting Bible. a lot shorter--”

“I heard leap.”

“Where are you from? Fine. Moving on, the round-up happened during the Greek's reign with days twenty-three hours and significantly less than now because of a consistently reducing speed. Entropy showing us how aging is supposed to work, joke is nice, but weakening magnetic forces leave us draining out with the yoke with no sunny side to hope for. But that’s the small of it—”

“Oh!!!!!!” H.T. said sarcastically.

“haha, right. Our year is the estimate of close enough in part skewed by the moon’s wobble-making orbit while it stone faces ocean tides. We count on the sun’s ride keeping us from shrinking into blackness in that place between the galaxies, you know; HELL? Revolutions while trailing slightly behind perceptively, in a game of catch with an explosion-like finish to look forward to. That’s if Jupiter remains the shield of storm fields, not deterred by micro planets' wraths from the nothingness like cosmic transitive request of death by an Asteroid Snu-Snu. Thus, hundreds of years of subtle calculational give-or-takes about as explainable as Voodoo."

“’Math, the one true hell.' Mother Teresa, '93.’”

“Agreed. We’re not steady in orbit with the moon around the moon with a three-body problem solved in a whimsically rounded-off to appear alive, in our seat on the Vertigo coaster simulating a three-way tug of war draw. Don't care if you're with me so far. It's the jump rope record we’ve got to show off to the aliens when we meet a few.”

“They’re not interested. Can't even show your work. Cure something first, then we’ll talk,” H.T. uttered confidentially.

“The process on a trillion-year treadmill before it birthed a puny us on this run-through. Billions of years of practice just to nail it in a sloppy gravitational lock treading an unquenchable ocean, latched to a speck brighter than our speck in a one and 999,999,999 chance pattern, reasonable numbers, and we’re already late to the starting line charting our existence as soon as our pens had ink; the author had drink, great sights made us stand up straight and think. Dizzy on all accounts as we set our watches.”

“I’ve got no idea what your god wants.”

“No. What time is it?”

“Huh?”

“What Calander can orchestrate an actual relationship with the several seconds since the moon love tapped the dinosaurs away. Or put flags with heavy drag on next-door neighbors if lifetimes are how we measure travel time? Digital estimation back dates to the finite bang to when the angels sang, birthed to look like us instead of winged eyeballs.”

“So, we discover what we are; *click.* The last of us dies in the war that no one knows how or why it started; *click.*”

“So, what time is it?”

“The time of the day I hate,” H.T. said, huffing in their chair, readjusting their shoulder.

“Why?”

“You think I like chatting with you because I'm not screaming.”

“Oh well. Guess there’s no point trying to shoot the shit with you.”

“Your break is almost over.”