TimeWise

Lately, you've been remembering your dreams, and they are getting more bizarre by the night. It must be the vitamin B-6. Have you ever enjoyed a dream so much that you were frustrated when you woke up? Or had fun turn to fear in a heartbeat? Now you go to bed each night with anticipation. Are you having intercosmic intercourse? In California, anything is possible ...

Click ... You are TimeWise.

Time ... the most powerful aspect of Nature ... a fiber common to every particle in the Cosmos.

A man in white robe, with blond hair and a black beard, sits on white stone and lectures you as to the use and misuse of Time Wisdom.

"Yeah, yeah," you say. "Get on with it, man."

"High pan mode ..."

You see continents drift. The Milky Way spins like a hurricane.

"High mag mode," says the bearded man.

Amoebae swallow cells.

"A bit less mag ..."

A human being battles an invasion of flu viruses. Body rises to meet challenge. The viruses are vanquished. Health prevails.

"Hyper mag ..."

Electrons ... protons ... Greek and Hebrew alphanumeric soup bits drift through space, tumbling, twisting.

"Medium pan mode ..."

Sol, our parent star, oscillates at a wavelength of 22 light years: an incredibly low frequency (ILF) broadcast. Is it modulated? Yes ... you tune in the signal ... the music is like nothing you have previously imagined. You strain to capture its melody, but it is too simple.

"Cool," you say.

"Time Wisdom," says the robed man, "lets you stretch and squash time by any factor you want. "

"Cool."

"With this power," says the robed man, stroking his beard which seems to hide a smile, "you can watch the world from the viewpoint of an atom, a virus, or a cell ... You thought they couldn't see, didn't you? ... or you can watch it as a bird, a visitor from space, or Gaia, the Goddess of the Living Earth. You can even enter, as it were, the bubble of original passion ... well, that's a stretch ... but never, ever are you to draw conclusions about yourself using Time Wisdom. This is reserved for powers greater than you. Attempt this, and Time Wisdom will become Time Stupidity."

"Do you know a dude named Nero?" you ask.

"This is your viewing screen," says the man, pointing to the horizon.

You watch empires built and destroyed. You see highways appear and wither ... cities spring up and spread out.

You glance away and then turn back.

Homo sapiens is gone.

Wait ... back up ... replay.

Here now ... now gone.

Slow down the window of time. Replay again, again, again ... how did humans die off? Did you go with them? You saw the same thing happen when a human being overcame a common flu virus. But now, the human is not victor, but victim. Earth, the cosmocell on which homo sapiens dwell, turns on this species (of which you are one) and bludgeons it out of existence. The antibodies? Solar ultraviolet, desertification, starvation, plagues, wars, acedia, selfishness.

"And the greatest of these makers-of-misery is selfishness," wafts a voice through a blue-black mist. The man in the white robe, with the blond hair and the black beard, rises from the white stone. Even through his facial hair, you see his frown. He extends a finger and raises an arm, rigid, over his head. His arm sweeps down. Blackness descends along a line tangent to his fingertip. "Until whenever."

Click.

You awaken. Never has the gray light of morning looked so warm!

* * *

Next night.

Click ... A group of clouds sweeps westward from Mexico, northward from the equator, south of the Tropic of Cancer ... tightens into a white knot, then a counterclockwise-spinning pinwheel ... black dot appears at center.

"Hurricane," you say.

"Looks like a galaxy, doesn't it?" says the Tutor of Time, a.k.a. bearded, robed man.

"Well, yes. Yes, it does. Like a spiral galaxy. But I know a hurricane when I see one."

"The similarities are more than visual."

The storm expands, clarifies.

"Some hurricane," you say.

"Not just any storm," says the Tutor of Time. "Force five and a half. Major deal. They better be ready on Maui when it comes."

"The big one?"

"Not the. Just a. One of many, many ..."

"I thought Hawaii already had the big one. Iniki," you say.

"Cute little thing. This one is big. It is going to cleanse Maui."

"Wonderful," you say.

"For the environment, yes," says the Tutor of Time. "For Nature, yes. A safety release. You didn't think the devil made hurricanes, did you?"

"I read someplace that hurricane means devil wind."

[Laughter] "Now there's one I've never heard. There was a typhoon called Divine Wind in Japan a long time ago ... I mean a moment ago ... the Kamikaze."

"Neither God nor Satan really makes hurricanes," you say.

"On the contrary," says the Tutor of Time. "God and the devil conspire together to create them."

"Really?"

[Laughter] "You mortals are so gullible! I love it!"

"What about the people on Maui?"

The storm glides over the eastern Pacific.

"What about them?"

"Is there going to be a lot of destruction?" you ask.

"Duhhhh."

"Guess that is a stupid question."

"What is the meaning of destruction? Nature does her thing. That is all."

"This is only a movie," you say.

"A movie of reality ... of what you would call the near future," says the Tutor of Time.

"How do you know that?"

"Later. Screen off!"

Eep-eep-eep-eep ... eep-eep-eep-eep ... eep-eep-eep-eep ...

You reach over and switch off the alarm clock. Time to spend another day (eternity) laboring to make some unseen person accumulate more stuff than you could ever have in your worst nightmares.

* * *

Two nights later ...

Click. "Hello, helloo, hellooo." Same man in same robe, sitting on same stone in same temple.

"Missed you last night," you say.

"Had other engagements," replies the Tutor of Time.

"Like what?"

"You take the controls of TimeWise consciousness now."

"I want to check out that hurricane," you say.

"Take all the ... time ... you need. Just think what mag mode you want, and what you want your point of view to be. This system works without hardware," says the Tutor of Time. "As before, do not use this power to check on yourself or your ... what do you call it? ... stuff. If you do that, I'll end the session."

"Right," you say.

Tropics appear calm.

"What year did you say the storm was in?" you ask.

"I didn’t."

"Oh."

Tropics still calm. Scan months backwards ... October ... September ... clouds congeal over the north-central Pacific. They pull southeastwards and twist clockwise ... over the central Pacific ... thence over Maui.

"Let me give you a tip," says the Tutor of Time. "It's best to look at time so the psychological arrow agrees with the cosmological arrow."

"What?"

"Run it forward, you nincompoop!"

"Oh."

You think forward. Storm just east of Maui. Numerals flash in corner of mindscreen ... 25.45 ... 25.49 ...

"What are those numbers?" you ask.

"Barometric pressure in inches of mercury," says the Tutor of Time.

Switch on bedside lamp. Digital clock says 6:20. Alarm is set for 6:30. Isn't it amazing how often that happens? If you had not set the alarm you would have slept all day.

* * *

Next night ...

Click ... Cloud galaxy spins. Western fringes touch Maui.

"Take the controls and go for it," says a familiar voice.

The storm is more intense than anything you've heard of, worse than any demonic or divine concoction they ever told you about in church school. Focus in. Can you see this thing in radar graphics? Sure enough, there it is, with outlines of Hawaii's island coastlines included. Zero in on Maui. Ground zero: that resort you stayed at when you where a kid. Forget the name. Irrelevant now anyway ... now meaning whenever ... the resort does not ... will not exist. Maybe it never did. Maybe it was only an illusion ...

"Bring the mag up a little bit, and check out your beloved resort through the eye," says the man with the well-trimmed black beard, clad in the white robe, from his perch on the white stone.

"Are you a sadist?" you ask.

"More than you could ever know. Note the water," says the Tutor of Time.

The beach isn't visible; it is completely flooded.

"How did that happen?" you wonder, for a moment forgetting ...

"The storm surge," says the Tutor of Time.

"Oh, yeah."

"The room you stayed in has eight feet of water in it."

"Look at those waves!" you marvel.

"Down she goes," says the Tutor of Time as the buildings crumble.

"Cool!"

"Gaia sure set those crooked developers straight," says the Tutor of Time.

"But I've got memories of the place," you say.

"I won't miss that hotel," says the Tutor of Time. "Now there's ugly, and then there's ..."

Speed up time ... storm spins away. Not a tree is standing along the beach ... All the buildings that have not been demolished are gutted as if bombs had been set off inside them. The pool is a sea of glass and concrete. There's a car atop the diving tower.

"Check out that autombile!" you note.

"Hyper-aero. Turn-of-the-millenium engineering fetish. But they weren't counting on it going 265 miles an hour," says the Tutor of Time.

Below, on a sand dune, two people dance to the beat of a battery-powered boom box. "Yeah, it's still the place I knew," you say.

"Going to see a perturbation in the population," says the Tutor of Time.

"You mean people died, or people gonna to leave the island?" you ask.

"Very few deaths. Lots of people are going to split."

You extend your finger and straighten your arm over your head ... bring it down ... horizon goes dark ... now you and the Tutor of Time, who has the blond hair and the black beard, who wears the white robe, who sits on the white rock, face each other in the gloom. Between you, a candle lights up by itself ...

Click.

Eep-eep-eep-eep ... eep-eep-eep-eep ...

* * *

Have you ever had a dream ruin your whole day? It didn't really happen. None of it is true. But the sun shines from a black sky. Every leaf is steeped in sorrow. The clouds cry. They know things you don’t know. Yet.

Go out and walk along the beach in the morning fog. Remember when you first saw this place, how it seemed like a magic land? Someday, it'll be erased by an earthquake. It is only a question of when. A blackboard erased is a blank slate, and blank slates are for creating ... yeah, yeah ...

Welcome to the Universe. Change is the norm here. Helloooo ...

Switch on your walkhuman radio ... stop. You have to sit down on the sand. There is a familiar voice.

"... are essential to the environment."

"How's that?"

"Earthquakes keep the planet's crust in balance."

"I've heard that."

"The Northridge quake was too far north, and was over too soon. And, it wasn't a big quake in terms of the affected land area. A massive quake would work much better."

"But what a catastrophe for the city!"

"Depends how you define catastrophe. There'll be a lot of property modification, no doubt about that. But that's a human-made problem. People who come here must accept that these events are part of the environment here. If they can't deal with it, they shouldn't come here."

"Suppose an 8.5 quake hit with ground zero in downtown L.A.?"

"You'd see about five trillion dollars in property damage."

"Like, you mean, five times ten to the twelfth smackers?"

"Ya."

"Do you think people would say, 'I can't live here anymore!' and leave?"

"No doubt."

"What would happen to the economy?"

"The economy! The bottom line! Insurance premiums! Geez! Forget that irrelevant nonsense. Take a higher, longer, wider view. These events are a normal part of Nature. In a megannium, say -- that's a million years -- there are hundreds of 8.5 events in this region. You'll see that they're quite ordinary when you acquire Time Wisdom, a sense of time as Nature sees it. Our lives are short when you think of them in megannia. And not too significant, either. We get reminded often of how vast the universe is ... on television shows, and in magazines and newspapers. But still we are not TimeWise."

"I've wondered how a river could carve out something like the Grand Canyon. It's only water."

"Easy. The supply of time is unlimited. That's how it happens. And locally, here ... this is a sensitive environment, and it changes fast."

"Earthquakes serve a natural purpose."

"Of course. You don't think God or Satan makes them, do you?"

"I think they both play a role."

"Naturally you're kidding."

"Of course. We're out of time. Thank you, Prof--" Click.

Another walkhuman dies! Number 31 gone! What is it about you and these pieces of hardware! Now you'll never know that professor's name.

You never knew the Tutor of Time’s name, either. Does it matter?

For a moment you think about throwing the defunct radio into the sea. But no ... you'll dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. Enjoy the morning, the beach, the salty air ... savor the here-and-now! What a place this is ... how lucky you are to be a part of it, for however much or little time.

Who in Southern California hasn't had the experience of time standing still? Oh, but that is an illusion. Let us savor our Time Stupidity while we can. The Tutor will see to it that we become TimeWise soon enough.

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Francisco Carrera.