Aboard Time Express

When I was younger, days, months and years  seemed so painfully long. Waiting for some particular event , or special day, was unendurable. I specifically remember the last day of the final exams, after which we were to go on  a long vacation. The one we had mentally mapped out and were  looking forward to, since the end of the last vacation. I recall time hanging heavily on my hands as I waited  to hear the familiar, shrill sound. The ringing of the bell, which on any ordinary day, I would not have , as much as, consciously acknowledged. My reaction to it was mechanical, being tuned to the routine for many years. But at that moment, it was singularly the most significant thought and was monopolizing my mind. There were traces of guilt too, trying to dampen my brio: guilt of not checking my paper in spite of having time, of answering the paper in a slapdash manner. But it wasn’t difficult to suppress these thoughts, in the face of the fantastic visualizations, of the vacation awaiting me, my mind was creating.  So as I waited for the sound of my emancipation, minutes  turned to hours, moments to epochs and anticipation to torture.

But , as years went by, things began to gradually change. Before I knew it, time had progressed  to whizzing  me by from its snail's gallop. Seasons  became blurry and indistinct as they merged into each other. Now I feel like I'm running a race against time. And year after year it get more difficult to catch up. Years seem to have dissipated  into months, days into hours, minutes to seconds and  good times to memories.  It seems like, just  a month or two back i had celebrated the beginning of the new  year with a couple of friends.  I remember everything vividly, so it could not have been a whole year back, and yet today is new years eve again!