Crunch: The Rushing Sound In Your Ears
Writing Exercise #22
Just riffing.
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Enjoy!
Crunch: The Rushing Sound In Your Ears
You ever just lay down in the grass and think about the power of it all? Of reality? The mud-clod that is earth, hurtling through space at untold speeds. The gravity dragging us all down towards a featureless sphere, the dynamic forces pushing the earth back up? Time, pushing us inexorably forward.
If you lay in the grass long enough, the sun will pan across your field of vision—not because the sun is moving but because you are. The closest thing we all have to a fixed point is the sun, and yet because of all the motion we don’t think of the sun as stationary. The sun rises, the sun sets.
This fleeting life flying past us at screaming speeds, like standing between two train tracks while trains blaze past you.
It’s omnipresent now, that rushing sound in my ears. We’re flying towards our destination, and we can’t see it coming, but it’s coming at us at incredible speeds.
And most of us—all of us—don’t appreciate the speed and the terror.
I do. Yes, special me. You don’t realize what “no do-overs” means. This is all you get. And you can do it wrong. You can make mistakes, and there’s nothing you can do. When doors close, they close permanently.
I thought that was me. The first time. Maybe even the second. Or third.
You might think it’d be cool.
Imagine jumping, and falling forever.
That rushing sound in your ears is eternity passing you by.
(250 words)
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Do you think about the future?
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What’s for lunch?
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Well, there's a sobering thought for a Tuesday. I had a roughly similar thought when I was at the little planetarium last weekend, but I didn't put it nearly this well. Holy cats.
1. I try not to, but life inevitably calls my attention to it. Next week we're going to a workshop to start the process of making our wills and arrangements for looking after the youngling if something should happen to us. Talk about sobering thoughts...
2. I have *VERY MUCH* thought about this, and I'd want telekinesis. Short version: invisibility is impractical, flight doesn't appeal to me, teleportation could be useful but I'd want to be able to absolutely *master* it so as to avoid problems, and anyway, telekinesis just seems a lot more useful.
3. Probably chicken nuggets. I'm basic that way.