We’ve finally reached the time for midterm elections, as in the actual election day. From here, all it will take is time, and likely quite a bit of it to obtain results, as we’re told in Nevada.
To pass the time, let’s talk time, as in the passage of. Because despite what we might delude ourselves to believe, time keeps moving on.
Humans really are quite silly for thinking they can somehow wrangle and control time. Just ask any of your critters companions this time of year and they will tell you it’s totally illogical.
One of my favorite cartoons seen on social media is about Daylight Saving Time. As an aside, notice there is no s, or plural on the word saving. I wish I’d noticed sooner because I have it in one of my books incorrectly and there’s no going back in time to fix it.
The DST cartoon depicts some hapless soul trying to explain why dinner is going to seem like it’s late to his dog. “That’s bullshit,” the caption has the not-buying-it pooch saying in response.
As I write this, I’m foggy headed and on my third cup of coffee, because I guarantee there is also no explaining of clocks supposedly falling backward to a cat who wants his fricking breakfast, and wants it on time, as in now. Zero dark thirty. No matter what time you may think it is or have allowed some unknown authority to manipulate it to be.
I discuss this curious concept of thinking one can save time in my Other Worldly novels. In Being Alien, protagonist Rowan Layne contemplates time after visiting Stonehenge, that ancient stone circle of England measuring time by marking the four seasons—with the help of the sun.
An alien who’s been around for quite a few of Earth’s rotations notes how humans erroneously think of time as linear and contained:
“Think about a retro clock here on Earth. Two mechanical hands, moving in a circular motion so that people can feel there is a sense of a beginning and end to each day, yet time never actually begins or ends, now, does it? It just keeps moving…Time is unfortunately dogmatically seen by humans as a line on which to move forward, when instead it is a force of nature, of the natural world, that keeps everything spiraling into upward motion, in the shape of, or following the path of, a circle.”
Concentric circles, and spirals—as in space vortexes—and this illusive thing called time are themes of Altogether Alien, sixth novel of the Other Worldly series coming early next year. Early being relative, but I’m estimating late winter, prior to the spring equinox.
Aging is another prevalent concept in my books involving the passage of time, with Rowan Layne approaching sixty in Altogether Alien, and not exactly thrilled with it, given she’s surrounded by younger aliens, many of them suitors. However, here’s an excerpt of her ultimate revelation:
“I was told there is a possibility, at some point in time, that I could live on another planet to stall my age the way Red Orbiters can stall theirs. But that place could be very far away. Would I really want to go somewhere isolated and remote just to live longer? What about all the folks I care about and love here?”
Love is one of those things people like to describe as something that should stand the test of time. It’s also an important thread in Altogether Alien. But that oft-used literary concept of time travel? It’s merely touched upon, to be further addressed in later books.
Rowan Layne likely will not engage in actual time travel, not only due to its status as a bit of a bore, being a trite overdone subject of novels and movies, but because word has it there’s a reason it simply is not a thing for aliens. If it’s risky for the extraterrestrial, is it doubly so for human hybrids? Only time will tell.
One thing’s for sure, as we endure this latest election day drama. Time will keep marching on, and those who attempt to take us backwards in time are definitely dangerously delusional. They can’t control mother nature, they can’t control women, and they can’t control time.