I open an email with the itinerary for today’s flight to London and I am confused. The email was sent months ago, yet it says “today” for my departure date. Not today’s date, but “today.” Does the email know what day it is? Yes it does. Emails are no longer fixed, they are dynamic. They reveal themselves as we open them.
On my night flight to London I sleep a few hours. The next night I sleep zero hours and now I have the flu. I am disrupted. Travel by air is too fast, my body rhythms cannot adjust.
My short flight to Paris is canceled. The dynamic reveal of an email gives way to the slow time of waiting. I find another flight and arrive hours later.
One day later I test positive for COVID. The slow time of waiting gives way to the glacial time of a pandemic. Hours give way to years. We are in the fifth year. You cannot outrun a pandemic.
I change my flight to go home. When I arrive at the airport, the flight is delayed. The boarding pass in my digital wallet has already changed itself to the new time of departure.
I feel like the protagonist in a short story by Borges transported to the future of warp speed, only to find that the faster an object approaches the speed of light, as Einstein discovered, the more time slows down.
The faster the information reaches me, the slower I go. I am 75 years old. I cannot keep up.
Nina Rota is a writer currently working on a book of essays titled Walls Crumble Before Me… www.ninarota.com
For Every Jewel There is a Question:
In a world where tomorrow is erased, what would you regret not doing today?
