A few minutes out of time…

They say that time passes and they are right. Time does pass. But I often find myself wondering if time passes at the same rate all the time or if, as I suspect, it’s a movable feast slowing and speeding dependent on… well, I’m not really sure what it’s dependent on.

Have you ever woken with an hour or so remaining before you need to get up and found that the hour turns into several as time slows down as each few passing minutes feel like a full sixty?

When you are in a rush, short of time, do the hours fly so fast that they seem like minutes?

I used to have an old spinning top, a hummer. The type of top boys used to have in a world where electronics were still relatively new. The more you pressed the wooden handle the faster it went, the louder it hummed. I’d press the handle up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, making the top spin faster, the hum grow louder, up and down, up and down, faster, louder, faster, louder, up and down until my hand hurt and I let go, allowing the top to spin free.

Spinning free, I’d watch the top steadily spin round and round, mesmerised by the blur of colour - red, green, yellow, blue, yellow, green, red - entranced by the undulating hum. For a few moments I was sure that time was standing still as I watched and listened, listened and watched, inside the vortex, out of time, alone save for the spinning of the top as the wolf chased Red Riding Hood and the woodsman wielded his axe and granny hid beneath the covers pretending the world had gone away and time no longer existed.

Time no longer existed.

I watched it all until the wobble began and with that wobble time slowly started to creep back into the room and fill my head. Slower and slower, the hum becoming quieter and quieter, until the wobble became a bump, the top falling over and skittering across the lino floor to hit the chipped, white skirting board with a clatter.

Time was back.