About the Moments in Between

Ahh ... I just finished writing up a pretty convoluted report which I am going to submit to my professor. An image of the poor old man holding his face in painful contortion as he resists the urge to tear my paper up and set fire to it pops to my brain.

Maybe I should rewrite my essay ... but there is just not enough time left. Why don't I ... take a break.

There's 11 more minutes to my class, which is a really inappropriately tiny slot of time. It is neither long enough for me to do anything useful, and neither is it short enough for me to get up and go to class early.

Sitting here, sandwiched between the time that I finished my essay and the time that my next class starts, I began twiddling my thumbs. For some really profound reason, I began feeling out of place in this buzzing cafeteria. I started looking around at people around me, they all had this intense look on their faces, and were all working fervently away on the task that they were engaged in: a man was pushing his bread as far down his throat as it can go, I caught a fellow student ogling at the girls across the street, and a student was writing furiously away (and also cursing away) at his assignment, which was probably due in another 11 minutes .

My impatience grew. Everyone was doing something. And I became all the more aware that I had nothing to do.

The unease is unbearable! I had nothing to distract me from myself!
I was stuck in a highly productive society with minutes to spare and nothing to do!
For the few strange minutes I was a wandering soul without a purpose, one who has lost his place in the busy teeming cafeteria.

I glanced at my watch ... what? 6 more minutes!? Without the buzz from all the mad rush that I was so used to filling myself up with, I was suddenly starkly aware of the unsettling silence in my cranium. I felt strangely naked and bare, as if pieces of my clothing were slowly removed from me by the minute.

I casted a hopeless glance at my watch again ... its 1pm! Gosh! I couldn't be more glad! I quickly packed up my bag, relieved at finding a sense of purpose for myself. I almost felt like standing on the top of my chair and announcing to the world about the important thing that I am going to do right now! I am going for a class which will educate me about the even more important things in life!

Closing up my bag, I quickly snaked back into the crowd, back to the busy and meaningful fast paced life, back from that weird moment in between where I was alone with myself, alone with myself with nothing in between.