Running Out the Clock

The grand metaphor of staring blankly into a computer screen desperately waiting for inspiration while the battery slowly dies is not lost on me. A little less clear to me is any metaphor related to simply deleting everything that I began to write earlier because it was complete crap. Then there are things that simply are what they are, like maybe I need something to eat and more coffee. Getting a bagel definitely beats contemplating my fleeting existence and death, the stark metaphor of the battery. The less time I spend thinking about that subject the better, and if I had just brought along a power cord I wouldn’t have thought of it at all.

I still have 40% of my battery left, plenty of time to write a really good essay. At 40% battery life I’m still a young man, a spring chicken, strong like bull. I still can piss away some time looking through the newspaper or bullshitting with the employees here at the coffee shop. At this stage of the game I still feel like I’m going to live forever. I’m king of the world!

Where does the time go? I just lost 5% more of my battery just in that last paragraph which I freely admit was pretty weak, but I wrote that in my youth and we are all allowed a few youthful transgressions. There comes a point in life when it’s time to put the nose to the grindstone and get to work. I’ve always been a slow starter, ask anyone who knows me. Most people who know me will say that they are still waiting for me to start. To my critics I must point out the parable of the tortoise and the hare…or was it the ant and the grasshopper? Anyway, there was some story or other by Aesop that spelled out in fairly clear terms that it is perfectly acceptable—perhaps even preferable—to fuck off pretty much right up to the end of your battery’s life and then finish in a grand flourish, making all of those who have plodded along assiduously from the start look like total idiots.

I’m down to 29% and I just ordered a bagel. Not eating will kill me faster than old age but I do have to choke it down fast and get back to work. No problem, I work better on a deadline anyway. There is no need to panic at this stage. Kurt Vonnegut is still writing novels and he has a lot less than 29% of his battery remaining. No one has ever written anything worth reading while they were panicking as anyone who has studied the literature of distress signals can tell you. About all you get out of panic victims is a lot of pleading and requests to tell their loved ones how much they will miss them—not exactly page-turners. No, it takes a calm, cool head to write great literature. Try to have a little dignity.

That reminds me of a funny thing a friend of mine once said about dignity which went on to be our entire philosophy of military service. My friend said that after he got out of the military he needed a job that would help him to regain his dignity. He figured that giving out free blow jobs to bums at the bus station would be a good start and a vast improvement over the lack of dignity inherent in military life.

Holy shit! I got a light flashing on the panel of my laptop. This could be the end, people. There is so much I wanted to do but I fucked around staring out the window watching a crow eat a cigarette butt instead of buckling down and writing something that will give me a little bit of immortality. Speaking of immortality, I haven’t even saved this yet. What the hell was I thinking back when I had 40% of my battery? Isn’t there anything anyone can do? I would give my left arm to have another 20% of my battery back. 6% remaining, it’s all over, folks.