Dasein

The clock tick-tocked around the clock face as Michael lay on his bed watching the thin black arm jump rigidly past the numbers. One. Two. Three. Michael was obsessed with time. Then his phone started to ring and he pulled himself up quickly till his feet were back on the ground. The clock tick-tocked while the mobile phoned shrilled in short bursts. Michael just stared at the phone watching the digitized name flash over a luminous back-light. It was Dasein calling him again. The clock tick-tocked while the mobile phone vibrated across the floor. Michael watched the vibrating phone slide moment by moment across the bedroom floor while the clock tick-tocked. He picked up the mobile phone and answered it.

‘Leave me alone will you. Just leave me alone.’

 Dasein answered.

‘It’s been a while Michael. Time is up. You know I will find you. Meet me tonight under the bridge at midnight.’

Michael slammed the phone across the room and it smashed into a trillion pieces. And the trillion pieces smashed into Michael. Each single piece was a single piece of time. A milli-second. Or less. One piece lodged itself into Michael’s eye which allowed him to see closely that single piece of time. And the single piece of time said to him,

‘Dasein!’

Michael screamed and ran to the sink and washed the single piece of time out of his eye and put it to the side. He then stripped himself of all his belongings and started to remove all the other pieces of time that were embedded in his skin. He gathered them all together into his hands and walked into the room and placed them on the floor. Floods of tears started to run down his cheeks. Each tear was a piece of time. And knowing this made Michael even sadder. The tears of time dripped onto the shattered pieces of his modern mobile-phone and slowly he started to try and piece them all together again. And then the mobile phone started to ring again. And Michael stopped crying.

The shrill sounds sang from every piece of time while the clock tick-tocked on the bedroom wall.  He couldn’t answer the call but he knew who was on the other end of that call. He knew the bridge and where he had to go. Michael stood up slowly and the ringing stopped. Michael walked out of the door and into the night. There was a full-moon in the sky. The moon was incredibly beautiful. Words could not describe how large and beautiful it was. Can you see the moon? Try and see it using your own imagination. While I continue to cut up more pieces of your time. As Michael looked up at the beautiful super-moon. Two hands like the hands of a clock started to appear and Michael started to groan out loud.

‘Please Dasein. Stop this. You will drive me mad.’

The super-moon disappeared from the sky until all that was left was its reflection in the river. Michael looked at the reflection of the moon in the river and was confused by how it appeared more real than the one that had appeared in the sky. And this frightened Michael. So he walked faster and faster as his heart started to beat wildly. It pounded so hard that he could hear it pound inside his head. And each beat reminded him of time. Michael started to run to escape the sound. To escape time. But can a human-being ever be free from time? As Michael ran faster his heart pounded louder while time screamed wildly. He could see the bridge ahead and Daisen’s strange figure.

And that wry smile across his face.

Michael went into full sprint no longer caring about his heart. And then it started to rain. And he collapsed onto the floor before he got to the bridge, before he got to meet Dasein. Every drop of rain that fell around him was a piece of time. Every breath he breathed was a piece of time. Every time he looked at Dasein. Dasein looked at him. As Dasein walked closer. Michael’s breath got shorter and shorter. And then time fell away. From his mind. From his self. All Michael could see was the moon’s reflection in the river as Dasein walked closer towards him. And when Michael’s last breath was sung and the world was presented to him. Naked. Beyond space. Beyond time. Daisen spoke to him softly.

‘How can one truly be free in this world. When trapped by space and time?’