Time Stands Still

When you fall asleep,you are unaware of sleeping until you're awake. During those missing hours, a whole other world comes alive. Three nights a week I work the late shift. For me, the supermarket is a trading facility. Apart from the obvious trade in food and household products, the supermarket trades in time. During the hours most normal people are sleeping, I am trading my time. I trade this time for money. I give them 8 hours and they give me money. Cashback.

This 8 hour trade gives me the money I need when most of the first years are devoted to the fundamentals of anatomy. You see, I've always wanted to be a painter, and like many artists before me, the female form has always been a great source of fascination. I've always been in awe of the power they unknowingly posses.

There is an art to dealing with the boredom of an 8-hour shift. An art to putting your mind somewhere else while the seconds slowly tick away. I found that all the people working here had perfected their own individual art. Rule #1, the clock is the enemy. The basic rule is this: the more you look at the clock, the slower the time goes. It will uncover the hiding place of your mind, and torture it with every second. This is the basic art in dealing with the trade of your time.

So what is the art of making my shift go so fast? I imagine the opposite. That time has frozen. I imagine that the remote control for life has been paused. Within this frozen world I'm able to walk freely and unnoticed. Nobody would even know that time has stopped. And when it started back up again, the invisible join would be seamless except for a slight shudder. Not unlike the feeling of somebody walking over your grave. That moment, when you see somebody walking down the street who was so beautiful you couldn't help but stare. Well imagine as I do with the world on pause, it becomes very easy to understand the concept of beauty. To have it frozen in front of you. That precise moment captured.

Would it be wrong? Would they hate me? For seeing them. I mean really seeing them. I read once about a woman whose secret fantasy was to have an affair with an artist. She thought he would really see her. He would see every curve, every line, every indentation and love them because they were part of the beauty that made her unique. When I'm ready, the only thing to do to start time again, is crack my fingers.