12:21am.
Is it too late or too early to be awake?
12:22am.
Should he risk another coffee? Another all-nighter?
12:23am.
Is this bad? This habitual sleeplessness? This endearing nightly ritual?
12:24am.
But if this were bad, why would his body allow it? Why would it force him to stay awake due to too many thoughts?
12:25am.
Why would it force him to suffer through endless nightmares? Through so many memories that once brought him happiness?
12:26am.
Like his earliest memory of his father. That bright, happy smile and soft understanding eyes which appeared to have seen so much but still managed to lighten Tim's world.
12:27am.
Why did something that used to bring joy have to become something that invoked depression?
12:28am.
Where was the fairness in that?
12:29am.
Was there any fairness in it?
12:30am.
There didn't appear to be any...
Tim rolled over in his bed. Every minute seemed to last days. Every second, hours. Time was a strange concept. A bunch of carefully chosen numbers that was perfectly in line with the slow rotation of our planet.
Who came up with it? The Greeks were the first to try and measure time, right? They used sundials.
But who came up with that?
Who was the genius who figured out the math behind time? Who was it who decided that time was to be in existence?
And why did they choose to?
If they hadn't made the decision of time, who would have? Would people ever learn of time otherwise?
If no one had discovered time, where would that have left the human race?
Imagine, just imagine, that if time was never discovered it meant that it didn't pass. People wouldn't drop dead due to disease. They wouldn't bleed out. People wouldn't be able to die based on time.
Humans would have to travel the globe just to see different stages of day or night. You'd never get to see all the stars.
As terrible as time is, it's a human necessity.
Just like food and water and shelter. But much more subtle. In much less demand.
Because unlike the others, you can't keep time forever. It comes and goes as it pleases, taking everything it pleases.
Time is almost as cruel as Death.
Tim rolled over in bed again and glanced at the clock. 12:37am.
Boredom was starting to take over. A certain restlessness preventing him from reaching sleep.
So what even was the point of trying to sleep anymore?
He turned on his phone searching through his contacts. Who would be awake at this time?
Dick probably. Tim opened up their messages, but exited almost immediately. He didn't want a lecture about needing sleep on school nights. Especially not from Dick. That boy stayed up all night then went to his job as a cop. He wasn't the person to give a speech on the importance of sleep.
