A crazed man at the bus stop spouts nonsense as you pass.
No time to listen. You're going somewhere.
Work. Home. The county fair.
What did he just say?
Right. Nonsense.
You don't have time for this.
Need to get ready for Walter Jr.'s school play.
You'd better be on time.
Huh?
Did he just say what you've always been thinking?
Time-talk would make so much more sense if the first century was considered to be the zeroth century, shifting all centuries back by one and aligning them with the years they contain. No more mental acrobatics in conversing about the 1800s, having to remember to call it the 19th century. This would change everything...
Is this guy actually onto something?
Untie the knot and rearrange time? Yeah... OK.
You're right.
This guy's out of his mind.
Back to your commute.
Back to worrying if you'll make rent by the first.
You're nearly out of earshot of the rambling, soapbox-platformed man on the corner, but his voice still manages to encroach on your subconscious. You come to a screeching halt.
Time does not equal money?
It's what you'd always needed to hear, exactly the opposite of what you'd always been told.
The man, disheveled and lasered in on his well-worn monologue, hardly shifts his eyes as you approach his soapbox. A pile of yarn-loops, binding what must be his idea of leaflets, what seem to be individually hand-printed "pages" cropped down to their short bodies of text, lies at his feet.
You bend down and pick one up, pinching it gingerly. The paper stock seems to be a thin newsprint, enforced by a neatly-placed piece of scotch tape and hole-punched to feed the yarn through.
The print quality is baffling—it's clearly letterpressed, but looks to have been done entirely by hand—as though the paper was set atop the inked letters and rubbed, rather than rolled over with the cylinder.
The man, having bellowed his monologue for the two-hundredth time that day, finally takes a breath. You hold up the leaflet and thank him for his teachings.
He tells you to return with it upon the next discovery of a major time-based event, so he can add it to your time-loop. He tells you to always wear it on your wrist, in place of a watch.
You nod.
He holds out his hand, bowing his head toward your wrist.
Without even thinking, you unlatch your Rolex. You feel a great weight lift from your watch-arm's shoulder as you hand this family heirloom to the time guy at the bus stop.
Three generations kept all their appointments with that before passing it on to you.
Now a man with yellowing eyes hammers it repeatedly onto the sidewalk as you watch.
You couldn't possibly feel lighter.
