1: The Art of Control

Becoming a master of time isn’t an easy feat. Though, I should probably also say wasn’t, given my position now.

Not like that, though - not time management. A thing so mundane. I refer to something far more vast and impressive; the ability to tame time. To wrangle it into submission and know everything that has been, is being, will ever be.

I am not so bold to assume I am such a master already, young as I am. I’m definitely on my way there though. First, I must know, what would you do, if you knew the future? What is the first thing you’d want to know - to control in the present? Really sit with the idea. Once you realise — I think you won’t judge me as harshly for my choices.

To me - the answer had to be an obvious answer. First, everyone wants money. Lot’s of it, and fast.

The Lottery.

Obviously.

Before that, though, I spent months planning and understanding my theory of time. It started in my final year of university at King’s College London, England. This… obsession, of a sort. It was consuming but it had to be, not that anyone else could bother to understand that at the time (or now, if I’m being honest with you).

“The Victorians played and focused on time more than, I’d argue, any other period we know of,” the lecturer stands at the front of a pretty standard teaching room, with the desks arranged in a circle around the centre. We all sit in an L shape, facing him and his green Adidas sambas. I am more focused on the shoes than the Victorians because I’ve wanted that rare collegiate style for some time now, scouring the second-hand market for a reasonable price. I can’t fathom how my middle-aged, father-of-two, largely unfashionable time obsessed lecturer has got his grubby little hands on them.

“How The Diary of an English Opium Eater manipulates time…”

They go for at least three hundred.

“What the French Revolution had to do with entirely rewriting our understanding of time…”

I tilt my head as he moves behind the desk, feet spread in ballet position one. It’s an odd stance.

“Excavating down into time, through Darwin or Conrad and their dark, racially charged corruptions regarding time and the so-called Other...”

Around the room, fingers fly across Apple laptops as we catch every precious word he affords us. All of this could be helpful in writing our final essay. Over the top of my screen, I wonder if he’s a size UK 6 and if he would be perhaps interested in selling.

“Ultimately what I want you all to consider is time as a concept. Does it even exist? No - it does not. It is a construct humans have built and changed over the whole of human history as a comfort blanket for our circadian rhythm,”

My interest piques at this. I glance up briefly to the slideshow behind him to really absorb what he has to say. It sounds a lot like the theories of time I’ve been researching, inspired from social media of course, and practising alongside my manifesting (also inspired by social media, would you believe it). The screen shows a human eye, with a nineteenth century clock superimposed over the iris.

“There are cells inside the body”—he laughs—“we’re practically riddled with them actually; our livers, hearts, brains, everywhere, that use the light we receive through our retina to maintain a regular schedule inside our bodies.

We are time, to some extent.”

I write this down, in italics like he speaks it. Then I separate the line by itself on the page. We are time.

I rub my eyes in exhaustion as a call comes through from Mama on my phone. It’s late and I’ve only just managed to cook dinner after a late evening stint in the Maughan Library on campus.

Sat in the round reading room atrium, as students so obsessively vie for spare chairs in, I’d taken out every book on the module reading list related to this weeks concepts of time. The stack had been large, both digital and physical, and a pain in the arse to find. The rooms spiral setting and ornate glass-domed ceiling had been the only saving grace to the experience: every time another journal or university website denied me access, I could lean back and admire the beautiful Harry Potter-ness of my university. One of the few joys of the old Russell Group unis — they have very pretty buildings because they’re very rich.

“Hi mama,”

“Hi sweetie! How are things?” In the background I can hear plates being moved and my dad talking. They must be in the middle of cooking too.

“Everything’s great, just got dinner out—”

“That late! Were you on campus for a long time or something? How come you’re eating so late? You’re going to be tired” she fires off a string of her usual concerns, punctuated every now and then with orders to dad to move this or bring that. We discuss our respective dinners: lasagna for them and, a classic, salmon and rice with microwaved broccoli for me. The veg is piled up on my plate because it always seems to be cheaper to buy meals for two, and I loved a good bargain.

Despite this, I would almost certainly be wasting some of the soggy, glossy broccoli.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, I have no classes,” I say, whole stick of broccoli speared on my fork in one hand while the other typed away a few more lines of my research. “I just need to get some stuff done while I’m thinking about it.”

“Oh, okay. Talk tomorrow love,” she shouts to my dad, “come say goodbye to munch!”

“Bye munch!”

“Love you both.” I hang up, freeing both my hands to write down a rich spell of thoughts.

If time does not exist then theoretically we can remove all assumptions we have made that constrain our concepts of the past, present, and therefore future.

Does time, instead of existing as a continuous straight length of string, fold instead on top of itself like an accordion might? The past, present, and future happening all at once, all the time.

I pause, thinking. Munching on a mouthful of rice. I didn’t break up the microwave bag enough, so chunks of rice are spread throughout the plate. It’s not entirely unpleasant, though it definitely looks visually…questionable.

By this understanding — could one not remember the future, like we recall the past? Like the present exists as a continuous maker of memories?

I underline this. Remember the future. What if we really could?

Leaning back in my chair, I take a moment to look around the room and give my head some space with this new thought. I’ve drifted away from the course content, but it’s close enough that it could work in a final essay. My breath draws me from thought-to-thought. There must be a connection between ancient meditative techniques across the globe — of breathing, controlling the mind, connection to the body. I had been doing meditation and breath-work for months in an attempt to wrangle my anxiety into submission.

My flat is completely quiet as I turn these thoughts over. It’s open plan and styled extravagantly, a choice that carried over from its previous affluent owner. Chelsea had always been a hub for creatives and this flat had had a string of extravagance in its history. The ceiling was at least fifteen feet high, with ornate cornicing and coving and floor-length pink flowery curtains. I loved its excessiveness. Unnecessary, but nice dad had said when we first walked in. It came at a bargain because the lease was almost up with only five years remaining as opposed to the typical ninety-nine… and the previous owner, a businessman from Monaco, had mysteriously disappeared off his yacht after a string of worrying gambling debts piled up. The story had actually inspired some of my own writing.

Pardon the pun, but the place was a steal.

I spend the rest of the evening and most of the night sketching out a plan for my time theory. Dragging half-written in diaries off my array of scattered bookshelves, tearing out useless pages and repurposing the rest of its carcass for my thoughts. Thought daughter Time Master I title one, thinking myself quite funny.

Keeping some space in there for my lectures and university work, I outline a plan. Meditation is obviously going to be a key aspect to controlling time. The brain was my tool in connecting to my future thoughts, amplification perhaps possible by the magnetic field around the skull I scribble down, so becoming a master of it would be essential. I set a task aside to find books on the ancient practices of monks: it felt somewhat cliché, but it was the only place I could think of off the bat.

Once I’d achieved that — if I did — the next step should be easy. I needed a way of recording my past and present thoughts in order in a form that meant I’d indisputably keep recording them in the same way in the future. The answer was clear to me, an English undergraduate — writing. I’d keep a diary. Write down everything that happened, exactly as it did throughout the entire day. Theoretically, if I did this faultlessly and regularly I could say without doubt that my future self was also doing it. It allowed me that connection.

So, meditate then write, what would be next?

It seemed… unscientific, really, to rely on that déjà vu feeling just appearing. It also grated a bit that I didn’t have anything more definite to rely on, but this seemed the best way to begin.

Something still felt like it was missing. If I was writing down the present like a diary, how was that telling me the future? Surely I’d just be confirming the present, or as best getting that déjà vu experience after-the-fact? I tapped my pen on the wooden table, puzzling it over. Flicking my eyes to the time in the corner of my screen, I cringed at the 2:34 on the screen before standing. I gave tidying up the round dining room table half a thought, before deciding to just leave my organised mess where it lay for tomorrow. I’d be getting it all back out in this exact order then, anyway.