The Crush of Time

By Peter Bowden


He was always chasing time. From the moment his feet hit the floor each morning, he moved with a kind of frantic precision—checking lists, scanning calendars, returning messages while brushing his teeth. To the world, he looked driven, successful, tireless. But inside, he felt the slow crush of a clock that never paused, a sense that no matter how fast he worked, he was always behind. At night, staring at the ceiling, he counted not sheep, but the things left undone. He told himself rest would come later—after the next milestone, the next win, the next invisible finish line.

Now and then, time offered him quiet invitations—a boy with curious eyes at the fence, the soft hush of early morning light through the blinds, the way steam rose from coffee he never drank. He noticed them, felt the pull, but always turned away. There was too much to do. Even as his body grew weary and his spirit thin, he convinced himself this was what life demanded. The work mattered. The pace meant progress. Someday, he thought, he’d slow down and finally feel whole.

But the slowing came not by choice. One morning, he simply stopped. No alarm, no audience. Just absence. In his place, the world went on as always. A man who had once filled every moment now left behind a silence thick with regret. Those who remembered him said he’d run out of time. But the truth was quieter, sadder—he had time all along. He just never let himself live in it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Woman Who Folded Her Way to Glory

By Peter Bowden
Image
She folded t-shirts at first. Part-time, under fluorescent lights that flickered like indecisive lightning. The shirts were always the wrong size or the wrong color or folded the wrong way, but she smiled anyway. People asked her where the bathrooms were. Sometimes she told them. Sometimes she pointed vaguely, just for sport. It was the beginning of something, though no one—not even she—knew what. In time, she went full-time. Gave tours with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for puppies or preachers. Her voice could bounce off stone and charm a bored teenager. She wrote press releases that made people care about sidewalk chalk festivals and the grand opening of the third best coffee shop in town. She remembered birthdays. Brought cake. Brought joy. She once stapled her blouse to a budget report and didn't notice until after the staff meeting. It became legend. She was that kind of legend. And now—after 29 years, 10,713 days, 4 broken office chairs, 113 bad hair days, 7 crises...
Read more

She Was Always Sad

By Peter Bowden
Image
She was always sad, though most people never noticed. She laughed at the right times, nodded when spoken to, and never once caused a scene. But there was a heaviness behind her eyes, like clouds that never moved, just hovered quietly. At the coffee shop, she always took the seat by the window, looking out as if waiting for someone who never came. The truth was, she had once loved with the kind of fullness that makes you believe you’ll never be alone again. A hand in hers, a voice calling her name from across a quiet room, the warmth of another body curled beside her in the coldest months. And then one day, the world cracked open, and he was gone. Just like that. No storm. No explosion. Just silence where there had once been everything. So she carried that silence. Not with drama or despair, but with the quiet dignity of someone who had known something precious and lost it. Her sadness wasn’t bitterness—it was love, still alive, with nowhere to go. And so she let it live inside her, s...
Read more

Things Are Quiet

By Peter Bowden
Image
The house was quiet now. The mornings came and went like old friends who had grown tired of the visit. He would sit at the kitchen table with his hands around a coffee cup that had long gone cold, staring at the empty chair across from him. The ache was not loud, nor did it rage. It sat in his chest like a stone sunk to the riverbed, unmoved by the current of passing days. He thought about the way she would hum softly while drying the dishes, the sound slipping through the cracks of his memory like sunlight through a dusty window. He missed her without ceremony, without grand displays. It was a dull, persistent throb that never asked for attention but never left him alone. Sometimes he would walk the old path down to the river, where they once threw crumbs to the ducks and talked about small things that seemed bigger then. The air was thick with the scent of pine, and he could hear the water moving over the rocks, just as it always had. It made him angry sometimes—how the world did not...
Read more