Dear Father Time,

Can I call you that? I know it’s an image of yourself that you’re familiar with but it feels weird for me to use. I haven’t heard anyone refer to you in that way since Charlotte the spider sang to Wilbur in the movie Charlotte’s Web. On VHS, might I add, so you get a better idea of my age.

This letter is like my version of the movie Inception. A letter within a letter like a dream within a dream. I realized that you are so often connected with love and that you affect how we love those around us. If we (humans) view you as finite, then we try to avoid squandering moments with our loved ones. If we view you as endless, then we may adopt the mindset ‘we’ve got all the time in the world’ or even that ‘time stands still when I’m with that person’.

So, I imagined that you and love are a couple communicating with one another. I rounded up different tropes associated with you both and interwove them in my letter. I hope it captures you well and that it reflects humans’ varying points of view surrounding you. More importantly, I hope it comes through that we need to love those around us the right way and with a healthy respect for you. We shouldn’t undervalue or disregard you or love at the expense of the other.

Photo taken by me. Location: Cerralbo Museum, Madrid, Spain).

Dear Time,

I’m lonely. You told me to write whenever there was a problem, if I needed you. Well, I think this counts.

I know you’re busy with work. Your hands indiscriminately engraving your existence on the faces of the elderly one day, precisely etching your signature on the ever-widening trunks of trees on another.

They call you merciless, impatient, and quick. ANd those are the nicer epithets. I know you bask in the obscurity. Get your fix from the tall tales and rumors.

I keep track of all the reports about you. The young treat you sacrilegiously like a cheap convenience store commodity: a stick of gum or a bag of chips. A seemingly endless supply that will always be there when they want it. The middle aged are no better. They try to ‘reverse’ you like the hands of a clock. As if you live in the sun dials, smartwatches, hourglasses and calendars they’ve crafted to appease you and keep track of you like a household god. When you’re away from our bed, I know you spend your nights inebriated with this ruse. Only the animals have gotten close to understanding your true nature. They’ve internalized the secret that you masquerade as linear but are really circular. Those perceptive geniuses put the homo sapiens to shame.

I’ve long resigned myself to the knowledge that ours is a marriage misunderstood in the world of man. They say that I don’t know you or that I ignore you. They even say that I’m time-less. But I swear to you that I treat Age with ambivalence and I haven’t slept around with any Numbers. You’re the only one for me. We work in tandem. I mature as you pass.

Here’s the problem. I’m lonely not just because I miss you. (Clinginess isn’t one of my true characteristics but it shows up now and then.) Rather, I’m losing my footing in this human world. My iterations are becoming less recognizable even to me. At times, my purpose and essentialness have been called into question. I need you to intervene on my behalf. I need you to help them define and express me properly. And for Goodness’ sake, tell them to stop wasting the opportunities to show me to each other. Those opportunities are finite and fleeting. Sorry to curse, but desperate times… I refuse to be relegated and distorted any longer. So, call in whomever you want to help get the job done. Do your worst.

Time…T. I’ve missed you. What’s left unsaid at this moment is no less important or true. I’ve laid bare my concerns and put forth my request. I trust your capabilities. As always, I’ll wait for you.

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Yours truly,