11 seconds

Just unearthed this piece, that I wrote on 2nd May 2007 then forgot about. It's called 11 Seconds and I wrote it while bored at work.

11 Seconds

11:41:13

it's like a dim, warm glow around the head, not tired as such but drowsy and a little achy - like the first day of recovery after the flu - not quite ill, but still not quite on the same frequency as the world around me. the less there is to do, the less motivated I feel to do anything, as though the longer I sit still, the thicker and heavier grow the layers of inaction like a covering of dust ever increasing my isolation from my environment.

11:41:14

The background noise of the room, ordinarily filtered out by concentration on a given task, swells, the mind registering snippets of mundane office oratory, none of it making sense as the conversational white noise builds, too much to take in and growing almost as if building towards a final burst that never comes, an orchestra growing more frantic and frenzied, increasing in pitch and volume towards the finale then right on the cusp, putting down their instruments as though suddenly waking from their reverie and feeling rather foolish. Willing the crescendo to come, I register its lack with frustration as the noise once again ebbs to almost comprehensible snatches then begins to swell again, the cycle once again repeats.

11:41:15

I look at my hands and am taken aback by the level of detail, the clarity, as if my whole consciousness is focused on one line, almost a psychotropic reaction - zooming in until I see the cracks in the skin, the result of 29 years of bending and retracting, expanding like the banks of a new stream as my focus becomes more acute and the magnification greater. I can almost feel the retinas contract as they strain to see beyond normal scale of vision, drawn in towards a solitary hair, closer now, so I can see the textured surface like a snake, scaled and patterned in ways incomprehensible on something so minute and ordinary, so insignificant.

11:41:16

Looking down I become aware of the blood cells just below the skin rushing back and forth like commuters in some perverse biological representation of rush hour traffic, each performing its given task without question, carrying oxygen round the veins, each cell minute, ordinary and insignificant.

11:41:17

My gaze wanders, pupils expand and dilate to focus on something just on the edge of vision, something which seems almost in harmony with the red cell so recently occupying all my conscious thought. the insect, tiny and red crawling along the top of the screen, pausing now and then, returning down its well-trod path, resting and then setting out again: a vespoideal Sisyphus ever carrying its burden back and forth; its work futile, never completed. Unquestioning, it continues oblivious to all but its task and unaware of being observed in its minute, ordinary, insignificant labour.

11:41:18

Deaths unknown, unnamed, unconnected, unregistered. Headlines flash before my drowsy eyes, none taking hold, only the overwhelming sense of death and the underwhelming sense of the synapses indifferent to these losses. I have no connection to these people. Without their deaths I would never have been aware of them, the only significant act in their minute and ordinary existence being the brutal and untimely exit from their mortal coil. But like dead skin cells, they fall away, forgotten in seconds, replaced by new ones and the world turns.

11:41:19

Dust in sunlight: motes appear and disappear as though passing briefly into existence from another reality, briefly basking in the light and heat of a burning ball of gas light years away, briefly connected and in focus, then slipping away. Their insignificant entry in the annals of time minute and ordinary, witnessed by just one sentient mind and then instantly forgotten. The dead skin cells of countless individuals, having served their mundane purpose and been cast aside, unnoticed by their host.

11:41:20

Determined clicking from the computer; the unrecognised sentience of a being able to think, but only within clearly marked boundaries and parameters. incapable of expression it clicks poignantly as power courses through its conduits like electrical pulses along excited synapses, it tries desperately to justify its existence, ever aware that it is obsolete from the day of creation, unable to adapt, to learn: a relic, counting its days, wondering as it powers down each day whether it will be for the last time, whether it will be discarded and replaced by another minute, ordinary, insignificant and ultimately disposable successor.

11:41:21

A sip of water sets atoms of oxygen, each carrying two atoms of hydrogen like unwanted luggage, colliding into each other in a frenzied ballet of excitement as the liquid is heated inside the recipient. each willing the temperature to increase enough for them to break free of their liquid incarceration and be carried on currents of air to new possibilities, new elements, towards the chance encounter with another substance, another type of baggage, the chance to be part of something more significant than simply a substance so ordinary that it covers two thirds of this minute rock.

11:41:22

Oblivious to the impact the action will have, a sentient biped nonchalantly clicks send on a document he deems to be minute, ordinary, insignificant, blissfully unaware of the chain of events he is setting in motion by that single click. unaware of the reaction it will trigger in another insignificant being halfway round the world, who will realise the potential significance of the words on the screen, and will share them with other insignificant beings, who in turn will pass on the words, each iteration gaining in power.

11:41:23

The tiniest spark of hope appears like a new life, like a real-world miracle and the realisation dawns that maybe, just maybe, insignificance is relative.