01:23
It had been the warmest few days of the year so far; in fact, nobody could remember when it had last been so stiflingly hot. Certainly not last year. What a shitty summer that had been.
We knew it couldn't last though - and sure enough, those clouds we had seen stacking up on the horizon last night dropped their payload while we were sleeping. Everything was wet again, and the stench of newly-soaked shrubs drifted over the field outside.
He was still out there, though. Still digging.
There it is! The infidel laughed out loud for what felt like the first time in his adult life, as his sore fingers finally squelched the wooden artefact up through the mud, although the elation was short-lived, as the box for which he had spent the last four years hacking through the soil turned out to be empty. He glared at the ancient map by his side and wondered how he could have allowed himself to be so easily cheated. Again.
Today of all days. A sad smile wandered over his dirty face as - having this very morning passed the age at which Jesus was crucified - he reflected on having outlived the son of God. "Maybe you should have looked for the holy grail instead," crowed the crows.
Oh well. Happy fucking birthday.
I don't know why they call them blackouts. It's not like you see any colours when you're unconscious, your eyes just switch off - like everything else. It's great. For a minute or two, you can go anywhere. It's not real, I suppose - but then, what is? Reality is overrated anyway. The only people who value reality are those with no imagination, the ones who think that if they can't touch it, hold it and put a six-foot fence around it, then it's not worth having. They want to know everything, and they end up feeling nothing.
Bloody scientists - always have to know things. Always inventing stuff. It's not enough that the sun comes up over here and goes down over there later on. No, let's invent time so we can know when it's going to come up and go down.
So now people like me live in fear of oversleeping in case we get up "late", whatever that means. Talk about making life hard for yourself. The only species on the planet that will ever have to deal with this, and we're supposed to be the smart ones.
I wonder if I'm oversleeping now... I could wake up if I wanted to but there's only so much crushing pointlessness you can put up with. And everything's pointless if you think about it for long enough. I suppose the secret is not to think about it.
Still, in a hundred years' time, it won't matter whether or not I woke up today. Or whether anyone else did. They hate to admit it but it's true: we're all just teetering on the brink of insignificance. A hundred years from now, no-one on the planet will ever have loved us, known us or even met us.
AND NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER.
The surgeon pronounced the time of death as 01:23 and was briefly struck by the accidental logic of this numeric sequence. Moments later, as she was driving home, she wondered what it was the man had been looking for.
It had been the warmest few days of the year so far; in fact, nobody could remember when it had last been so stiflingly hot. Certainly not last year. What a shitty summer that had been.
We knew it couldn't last though - and sure enough, those clouds we had seen stacking up on the horizon last night dropped their payload while we were sleeping. Everything was wet again, and the stench of newly-soaked shrubs drifted over the field outside.
He was still out there, though. Still digging.
There it is! The infidel laughed out loud for what felt like the first time in his adult life, as his sore fingers finally squelched the wooden artefact up through the mud, although the elation was short-lived, as the box for which he had spent the last four years hacking through the soil turned out to be empty. He glared at the ancient map by his side and wondered how he could have allowed himself to be so easily cheated. Again.
Today of all days. A sad smile wandered over his dirty face as - having this very morning passed the age at which Jesus was crucified - he reflected on having outlived the son of God. "Maybe you should have looked for the holy grail instead," crowed the crows.
Oh well. Happy fucking birthday.
I don't know why they call them blackouts. It's not like you see any colours when you're unconscious, your eyes just switch off - like everything else. It's great. For a minute or two, you can go anywhere. It's not real, I suppose - but then, what is? Reality is overrated anyway. The only people who value reality are those with no imagination, the ones who think that if they can't touch it, hold it and put a six-foot fence around it, then it's not worth having. They want to know everything, and they end up feeling nothing.
Bloody scientists - always have to know things. Always inventing stuff. It's not enough that the sun comes up over here and goes down over there later on. No, let's invent time so we can know when it's going to come up and go down.
So now people like me live in fear of oversleeping in case we get up "late", whatever that means. Talk about making life hard for yourself. The only species on the planet that will ever have to deal with this, and we're supposed to be the smart ones.
I wonder if I'm oversleeping now... I could wake up if I wanted to but there's only so much crushing pointlessness you can put up with. And everything's pointless if you think about it for long enough. I suppose the secret is not to think about it.
Still, in a hundred years' time, it won't matter whether or not I woke up today. Or whether anyone else did. They hate to admit it but it's true: we're all just teetering on the brink of insignificance. A hundred years from now, no-one on the planet will ever have loved us, known us or even met us.
AND NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER.
The surgeon pronounced the time of death as 01:23 and was briefly struck by the accidental logic of this numeric sequence. Moments later, as she was driving home, she wondered what it was the man had been looking for.