The Tyrant of Time

I wrote this over sixteen years ago. I'm posting it on my birthday. It seems appropriate.

“Time!” he cried, sitting upon his throne, his two arms clicking in rhythm like the reverberant beat of a hammer upon the top of my skull.

A third hand clutched a knotted cord.

With a few precise snips, I knew that years—whole years—might vanish from my dwindling stock of days.

I wept bitterly to know the clock was such a cruel, unforgiving tyrant. Could he not spare a single ounce of pity for me?

“Time! Time! I have all the time in the world. All the time in a hundred thousand worlds! I can stretch hours into days, days into years, and years into centuries. Or, if the mood strikes, I can compress a decade of bliss into the clipped tick-tock of a few dreadful moments! Time made me what I am—and Time taketh away all that is. What king has ever possessed such wealth? For all the princes of the world have never held so great an abundance of Time. And Time—ah, Time!—is more precious than gold, when all is said and done!”

I stared at his smooth, round, maniacal face and told him, coldly, to wind down.

As if in retaliation for my insolence, he began snipping segments from the long strand of Fate—that black thread from which my years were spun. I felt my youth dissolve like candle wax left too near the flame.

“You can do anything you like,” I said, “but that doesn’t make you right in your raving, maniacal assertions.”

“Really?” he chimed, voice ringing like a bell. “And can you explain to me—in just a few spare sentences, mind you, for your time is nearly up—what could possibly be more valuable than Time?”

I looked up at him as the misty clouds parted, revealing a glittering black firmament stretching endlessly in every direction.

“Space,” I said. “In Space, there is no Time.”

And with that, his expression changed.

The richest king in all of history shriveled before me—suddenly, just a lowly beggar, clutching a knotted cord that no longer meant a thing.

My book: Molotov: Poems

Follow me on X/Twitter: @BakerB81252