Six O'Clock

“Sixoclockbook.” Hugging the Coast: A Celebration of Coastal Food and Travel, huggingthecoast.com/2009/04/09/read-a-cookbook-for-free-the-six-oclock-breakfasts-cookbook/. 

   Another day, another hour, another minute. I’m desperately watching the clock, waiting for it to strike six. I’ve had enough days filled with this boredom; they’re endless. No one even pays attention to me. I just sit in the corner by myself, watching people walk past me back and forth. Sometimes, they forget my existence, which gets into my head and stays there for days. I feel isolated, like I don’t belong. Why am I even here? Is this my life long prison?

    At times however, I hear a “tap tap tap.” I like to believe they do this to make sure I’m still alive, and somehow, I’m still breathing. I get so frustrated I sink to the bottom swaddled in my depressed thoughts. On some days they move me into a temporary holding pen while they wash my other place. It never gets too dirty though; there’s really nothing in here except for me; not even a friend or a plant, it’s just me. After every one of my tears is scrubbed off of my regular cell they put me back to my natural environment. Since everything becomes so clear I get to stare at my reflection. It’s the only kind of entertainment I find around here. Finally the time came; I watch the boy slowly get out of his seat, and with his eyes still on the computer screen, he reaches for a little round box sitting on a shelf above his bed. He shakes it, then twists it and finally opens it. While starting to walk towards me I get up and start moving, pacing, taking up all the tiny area I have as fast as I can. Afterall I can’t help it; it’s happy time! I get this rush of happiness that makes me so energetic I have to let it out. It’s exactly 6 o'clock, and the boy puts the box above and tilts it towards me. Little pieces of heaven start falling. As soon as one lands I swim for it and eat it with a big gulp, another one flakes the water, another one, another one, and another one. The boy closes the box and puts it back on the shelf. Well, I guess that is that for today. Happy time is over.

    I live in a crystal clear tank with only my reflection there as a source of entertainment. Depressing I know, yet I stay alive. I turn the littlest things around to create moments of sheer happiness that keep me going. Moments like when the clock strikes six and I get fed. I might live a gloomy life but inside I stay bright.

Greatness

Russel, Sean. "How To Achieve Greatness | A Guide Anyone Can Follow." MenProvement. MenProvement, 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2015.

“He will be on the verge for greatness,” the man said with assurance. Issac, who was listening through the small opening between the door and the wall, was to remember that moment for the rest of his life. Not knowing who said that to his father, Issac was forced to leave the scene as soon as possible and head back to his room so his father would not find out he was still awake. The man had knocked on the door out of the blue, late at night to talk to Issac’s father. Issac showed up near the end of their conversation when he heard what was said.

A year and a half later, Issac noticed a rapid progression in his technical skills. He decided he needed to improve his physical attributes to become superior to everyone else. He worked and worked and gave his all to become superior. He wanted to become the best and he soon realized he could achieve this goal. Soon enough, bigger and greater opportunities came knocking on his door. When those opportunities came he had to make some difficult decisions to become a great. He made the decision and it was to change his life and inspire others.

Issac continued to work hard every day to further improve himself and this affected others around him; it inspired them. They noticed the change in Issac and how he was on track to be the greatest ever. They now believed hard work could achieve anything. The others were to never be as great as Issac, though. 

There he was four years later. Issac had finally become “a great.” He was forever thankful for overhearing what the man said to his father five and half years earlier. Issac still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to become the greatest of the greats. The following year another individual was to become even greater than Issac and remained so for the next 14 years to come. Something happened to Issac that caused a downfall in his performance. His father had died from a shuttle crash in space and this affected him. But his father’s death only affected him for a year. He was to never give up on hard work until one day that person who was greater than Issac was to be overtaken. Issac was to break through that barrier of being a lesser great. He was going to finally become greater than he had ever been before. He was to gain his confidence back and become the greatest of all the greats. He was to be known as the greatest cosmic footballer that had ever lived.

Stray Moments

N.d. Poems and Essays. By G. J. Gillespie. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.

Matan sat down to write his stray moments; he had trouble remembering any. He thought about what had happened in class; Ms. Marcus had explained stray moments, she gave examples of stray moments, Matan had thought of some stray moments then, but he couldn’t think of any now. Ms. Marcus said that they were events or actions that someone wouldn’t think about or remember later. He emailed Ms. Marcus to try to help him understand stray moments. When she replied, she gave a couple examples as well. As soon as he read the examples he couldn’t recall them. He re-read them and still, as soon as he looked away from the computer screen he couldn’t recall the memory. He wondered if this was just the nature of a stray moment: something disappearing from your mind as soon as you try to recall it. If that was the case then how would anyone even know what they were or give examples of them? He began to really think about this. He would experience something and think to himself, was that a stray moment? And then realize he wasn’t sure what he was thinking about. If a stray moment is a moment you can’t remember then is the word stray moment just an imaginary concept? He wondered.

 What if there were world events that only one person remembered, because everyone else passed it off as a stray moment. He couldn’t get over the fact that as soon as he thought anything was a stray moment it would disappear from his mind completely. The next day he went to Ms. Marcus’ room to see her during his free block and told her about his thoughts and feelings on the concept of a stray moment. He told all about how as soon as he tried to categorize a moment as a stray moment, it disappeared. She asked him where it went.       

“Where what went?” he replied.

“The stray moment,” Ms. Marcus reminded him.

“What stray moment?” Matan asked confused.

“The one we were just talking about…”

“I’m sorry I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

Matan left the classroom shortly after that. As the week went by, he began to feel more and more uneasy with the concept of stray moments.

Matan went in search for answers. He searched near and far, high and low, here and there. He finally found himself in Tel Aviv at the apartment of Edgar Keret: the man who had started it all for Matan. Matan knocked on the door and waited for an answer. Matan wondered how he would react to seeing a random teenager at his door with a mountain of questions. Edgar opened the door and saw Matan standing in the hallway apprehensively. Matan explained his situation to Edgar and Edgar looked back at Matan with a look of understanding. He invited Matan into his apartment. Matan sat down as Edgar offered him something to drink. Matan declined politely and asked him if they could talk.

“So you want to know about stray moments, right Matan?” Edgar said.

“Yes, I really would.” Matan replied desperately.

“ Well, they never really existed in the first place.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“They’re more of a concept than a reality.”

“But that doesn’t explain why I can’t remember them Mr. Keret.”

“It’s a difficult thing to explain, but I can try. They’re something that you only remember for an instant. After the first time you think of it, you can never think of it the same way again.”

“Then how do you write about them then?”

“You have to feel them and try to write them from emotions not from thinking.”

“So then theoretically couldn’t stray moments be dangerous for one's health, for example, if I thought that this whole encounter was a stray moment?”

As soon as the words left Matan’s mouth, the moment disappeared. Matan was standing outside a man’s apartment wondering how he got there. He waved off the situation as a weird fluke of nature.

He pondered the possibility of his life being just a stray moment thought up by some being of higher intelligence. As soon as he thought that, everything just ended. Everything Matan had ever known, or loved, or cared for, or thought about was gone. All of it gone in a millisecond.