Pannonica

I have often looked upon life and thought: if one's lifetime is all one knows of eternity, then life is an eternity. There remains time for endless revisions and reincarnations. I think of Dylan and Bowie. I think of Orlando, though I read that in another lifetime and cannot remember the book, just that one can play infinite roles and both genders and a multitude of selves foreign to oneself if one allows oneself.

I think of myself ten years ago and myself ten minutes ago and see them as different novels written by different authors.

I think about the next sentence and what it holds in store for me. Perhaps I have drank too much, perhaps I will vomit. Or perhaps the gate to my apartment will be locked and I will have to beg entrance from the nightwatchman. And perhaps he will not have the key.

Then I focus on now, which is five shish-kebab sticks and two cigarette butts smoldering on an aluminum tray, the beer I cannot finish, the owners of the restaurant waiting for me to leave so they can close, the shouting of drunks pushing each other into the back of a taxi - and this moment, too, is an eternity.

There seems to be no solution - rational or otherwise - to the problem of time but to concede that the moment is infinite, a lifetime moreso, and eternity even more infinite than the both of them combined.

And wonderfully, all of it is as fleeting as the cigarette given me by the nightwatchman, now smoldering on the aluminum tray with the five shish-kebabs and the moment that passed away with them.