A Hungarian physicist recently developed a revolutionary device that can measure the atomic speed of an attosecond. An attosecond is the name given to a quintillionth, or a millionth of a millionth of a millionth, of a second. This minuscule segment of being is imperceptible to the unassisted human senses, and is to recorded time what a second is to the duration of our universe’s existence.
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While the world around it rushed to start yet another Thursday, this particular October morning progressed at its own deliberate cadence. The unseasonably cold air encapsulated particles of hasty conversation at the point of delivery, and the oaks lining yet another narrow road wept dead leaves. The monotonous wind song eulogized a six-foot by three-foot patch of asphalt on a remote stretch of Market Road. To the birds or biplanes or gods that watched from overhead, the sight of Simeon Wright was one of the few that had any permanence that morning—no blurry trail of perpetual motion could be seen surrounding the impact spot.
The place where body met pavement was a slick of congealing blood. Some reddish coins and bits of rock salt or glass were scattered around, and a crimson shoelace hung moist and untied from a scuffed black dress shoe. It would remain that way for the time being. An attractive young woman on her way to work, startled sufficiently enough from her morning routine to break it, maneuvered carefully in high heels to feel the young man’s wrist for a rhythmic accompaniment to the idling but broken vehicle sitting just yards away—its bumper wrapped impossibly around a sagging oak.
Covering the young man’s pulse point was a simple plastic-banded watch—the kind with a large digital display and little else. Without much effort, the watch fell off the man’s wrist and into the woman’s hand. The scratched rectangular watch face read 7:42:33. It flashed. The new readout was the same as the last. 7:42:33. Entranced, the woman watched as the timepiece continued to repeat the same five-number, two-colon sequence it had just a second before. She checked her own watch, which now read seven fifty-three. 7:42:33. 7:42:33. On this uncertain morning, one inexorable fact about Simeon Wright’s death was clear, and it continued to announce itself on the face of a damaged timepiece.
Stowing a cellular phone deep in her briefcase, the young woman paced on the narrow road’s shoulder waiting for help. At this point, her exposed skin was so cold it burned with an artificial warmth that ultimately kept her from retreating into her car. The woman’s continued pacing, however, did little to divert her attention from the expired human body lying just feet from her own. She rifled through her pocket for a cigarette, but instead plucked the man’s cheap digital watch from within. 7:42:33, still. At this time—eight-thirteen by the young woman’s own watch—the sight of a cadaver had grown considerably less jolting, and the young woman surveyed the young man with renewed intensity.
She counted no less than six places from where his blood had spilled into the pores of the pavement. On such a cold morning, the young woman wondered why he wouldn’t have thought to wear a jacket, or at least a heavier sweater. His clothes, nonetheless, were stylish where they weren’t torn. The young woman noticed a stripe of argyle at the place where the young man’s left foot had been unnaturally folded under itself. What happened at 7:42:33? She mouthed the words silently as if to ask the young man himself. Though silent, the young woman’s breath was carried aloft in tendrils of grayish steam. Literally, the answer was lying directly in front of her, and just steps away under a still-swaying oak, and strewn about in bits covering the desolate road. These answers did not satisfy.
Judging from the collection of material evidence surrounding her, the young woman concluded that this young man must have led a rather comfortable, enjoyable life. An abundance of enviable brand names adorning the young man’s body and the rear bumper of his totaled car supported this theory. Neglecting the jagged laceration that ran from temple to chin, he also possessed an attractive face. Devoid of any conscious expressiveness, the gaze of his deep blue eyes was affixed straight ahead—straight up, to be more precise—and it pierced the canopy of swirling brown rainclouds. Despite his physical presence, the young man’s life had deteriorated into a redundant hull whose contents were emptying onto the road much more slowly now—at eight twenty-two—than they were just minutes earlier.
Before long, help arrived and the young woman retreated to the gravelly shoulder of Market Road. She watched intently as several men struggled to lift the death-weighted body from its point of final impact, leaving little more than an ill-defined patch of crimson in its absence. She deflected a numbing vortex of dust that was kicked aloft by a particularly violent wind gust. She listened as the lead paramedic yelled indifferently to another the name and age of the deceased—facts found in a wallet on the passenger seat of a crushed red Mercedes.
The readout on the dashboard clock read 9:02 as the young woman, feeling as if she had been awake for days, rolled to a stop at the intersection of Sixth and Commerce Streets. This short break in the commute afforded the young woman a moment to phone her secretary to let her know why she was running late, but the battery had died. Her entire being, lulled momentarily by the stillness of her death-watch, was having some difficulty readjusting to the morning’s assault as she neared the city center. Eventually the woman’s blue sedan, which had only journeyed twelve or thirteen miles that particular October morning, rolled into its reserved parking space sixty-eight minutes behind schedule.
As she walked briskly through the fluorescent halls of a sterile office building, the woman struggled to shift her mind to the day of work ahead. She remembered her first session was with a new client, and she feared her unintended tardiness—regardless of the excuse—would not sit well with a patient she hadn’t yet met. The secretary calmly explained that the morning’s first client was a no-show—that there was no need to worry about being late. She thanked the secretary and hurriedly ushered the waiting stack of patient files into her briefcase. The file on top was that of the absentee patient. Its label, neatly printed with a black felt-tipped pen, read Simeon Wright (8:30am): Initial Psych. Evaluation.
The young woman rushed past the half-empty water cooler and the stylish Monet lithograph and the small white wall clock—which now read nine thirteen—on the way to her office. Simeon Wright’s watch, stuck at a constant 7:42:33, remained in the woman’s coat pocket while she sought to replace the recollections of that October morning with piles of work.
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tired
hungry