This topic came up tonight so Katie, here is why I would want this particular super power.
Like many, I am a clock-watcher. While at work, I watch with deflated enthusiasm as the minuets trickle by. At home, I watch with dread as my time rapidly vanishes with nothing to show for its passing. I am a slave to the clock, time is my master. Like any other slave, when I close my eyes and journey to the magical realm of fantasy, I find myself master of my master. In my dreams, I rule time. I can stop it, reverse it and if needs be, speed it up. I am a God among men. When I close my eyes, I have a super power.
More than a fantasy, the ability to stop time is for me, an obsession. I could not begin to count how many car rides or flights played host to elaborate daydream trips to a world where finance, fear and boredom hold no sway. How many sleepy smiles have curled my lips while pondering the implications of my desired power? How often did I lay under my bed as a child, planning my grand time control adventures, amidst socks and GI Joe's?
The problem with my desire to stop time is that I would likely not use it for the power of good. Sure if I saw a drunk driver weaving his/ her way down the freeway, I would stop time, pull them over and disarm them of there keys. I might even save people from burning buildings or violent accidents from time to time. These heroic deeds however great would unfortunately be forever shadowed in the selfish and evil acts that would occupy the majority of my time. I would rob banks without any possibility of capture; I would shop sans the pesky checkout lines. My rent would be paid from the unwilling wallets of others and never again would I wonder what “that woman” looks like naked. I would cause mass hysteria and panic with sophomoric stunts of grand caliber. I would stop time for months on end and die the entire population of Manhattan blue. I may tie the president’s shoelaces together during a national address and very likely I would wreck havoc on love lives by swapping partners at a lovers leap or romantic restaurant. Those who displease me would quickly find themselves in the public eye with their pants down, sometimes literally. If I were to continue to work, lunch breaks would become great chasms lasting weeks or months and still my productivity would make even the hardest workers seem mediocre. All in all, I would live as in imp, forever stirring trouble for the inhabitants of my vast playground of mischief.
I am a good man, at the moment. But if the day comes when a divine power gives free agent to our dreams, I will be found at the front of the “control time” line, waiting eagerly to transform myself into a very bad person.
Posts
