Time Heals All Wounds

 

 

I’m always in a hurry, it’s a matter of temperament. When I broke up with her I went straight to a pawn shop. I needed a lot of time to put on my wounds, so they would stop bleeding and heal quickly. The wounds, some deeper than others, were in different places, and all of them hurt. I had a serious lesion to my pride that wouldn’t stop bleeding, and I thought going out in public like that didn’t look right. The wound to my plans for the future was infected: the sepsis was creeping into my Sunday afternoons and contaminating my dreams at night, provoking insomnia.

‘I need a large supply of time,’ I told the solicitous man behind the counter. ‘Put it on my wounds and I’ll go right to bed. I want to wake up cured.’

The man looked at me indifferently. ‘What kind of time do you want?’ he said, expressionless. He had blond hair and pale, transparent eyes. He was wearing an old suit and had a long thumbnail, which might be good for scratching tables. His indifference showed that he was a man in the habit of buying and selling.

‘It’s all the same to me. I’ll take any kind, so long as it heals,’ I told him.

Rather disinterestedly, the man looked over at some shelves, which were crammed full of all kinds of things - household items, lamps, used clothing, memoirs, old typewriters, potted plastic flowers, empty fish tanks. ‘You’ll have to wait awhile,’ he told me. ‘I don’t have any time in stock.’

I hate to wait. It seemed like a good idea, though. My wounds were exposed, bleeding. A good bandage might cure me. What kind of time did I need? Empty time, like my days since she’s been gone? An indeterminate time? Ten, twelve, fifteen doses of time? I’d buy as many as necessary and put them on right away. I’m a man who loves speed, and my wounds were healing slowly.

Just then a girl opened the door. She was very well dressed, had short blond hair, and seemed distinctly frail. I was afraid that opening the door would make her fly away like a feather, that her feelings, ideas, and desires would explode in a thousand pieces. I would have had to bend over to pick up the pieces, which might have embarrassed her. She seemed somewhat jittery. As a matter of fact, I had the feeling she was always somewhat jittery.

‘I’d like to sell a little time,’ she said in a voice that was low but not timid. ‘Right now,’ she added. She must have really needed to get rid of it. She hadn’t even waited for the man to reply.

‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for,’ I said, before the salesman had a chance. ‘I’ll buy it, as much as you have. I’ll pay whatever you want.’

She seemed a little surprised by my interjection.

‘I don’t think this time is very useful,’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s very uncomfortable for me, I don’t know what to do with it, it bothers me. I’d like to get rid of it in a bloodless, you know, honest way.’

‘All of your time, ma’am?’ I asked, a little surprised.

She was leaning over the counter, revealing a gorgeous shirt sleeve, which was embellished by a cufflink. The cufflink was a golden iris against a black background. I might have wanted to have those cufflinks and maybe even the woman who was wearing them, but at that very moment I felt a terrible cramp in my leg. I’d had it - I needed a cure.

Leaning gently against the counter in her mauve blouse, she seemed to be mulling over how much time she was willing to sell me.

‘I don’t know how much to keep for myself,’ she admitted a bit nervously. ‘The truth is, I like to kill it in different ways, throw it out the window, squander it, squish it between my hands, put it on the bed and take it apart: how time enslaves! It always comes back to haunt me. Take as much as you want, it doesn’t do me any good. Anyway, whatever’s left over will seem very long.’

I bought a bunch of time from her. She breathed happily, like a little girl just relieved of an unpleasant chore. She invited me for a cold drink (she wants to kill the rest of it, I thought to myself), but I wanted to get going right away: my wounds were still bleeding and they hurt a lot. I was going to soak them in time, for a long time, for an empty time, like the time I’d just bought, in time that was superfluous and unimportant but that would nevertheless heal my wounds.