Time is nonexistent. There is no such thing as the slow click of the second hand hitting each little dash on the round face of the numbered circle hanging on the wall above the blackboard. There is no such thing as the glowing figures that flip and jump forming rigid blocks of numbers on the luminous box propped on the leather band on your wrist. There’s no such thing as early or late, and there are no fixed structures boxing in the activities of your day, telling you when to eat, to sleep, to learn, to lose your mind. And it’s not just that it all stopped suddenly; there is no confusion, no recognitions, no sudden realization of being trapped with this narrow piece of life without any doors or windows around to let you out. It’s not like that – it’s just not there. As if it never was in the first place. But rather than being lost without these fences leading us, we tinker along like robots, keeping close in formation, as if the years we spent being lead by the hand left us molded to this track. We keep going on and on as if the floor beneath our feet has been replaced with a rubber conveyor belt that keeps us moving forward in one direction. We are produce at the grocery story check out: apples and oranges rolling along. We are luggage at the airport; we are imprinted papers at the press.

But wait, that’s not right.

I have realized this absence, this void in what was once complete. Maybe I am not the only one? But where’s the panic? Where’s the noise? Apples roll silently off the unfenced edges of the counter, falling thickly to the floor. Am I the only one who’s noticed? Or maybe I was the only one fenced in from the start? Without time there’s just this wide and gaping prairie of existence.

Maybe I should be running. Maybe I should be fleeing before someone realizes the walls are down. Maybe I should –

“Yes, the clock is broken. You’ll hear the bell ring when class is over. Now pay attention.”

Annoyed, the teacher turns back to the board to enlighten us with the simplification of 2tan²6x – secx / 3sinx + cos²x.

I should have run.