01/19/25
Time Difference
Accompanying Soundtrack:Take Your Time by Tacoma Radar
“Dear Milena,
I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time?”
―Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time?”
―Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
There are 24 hours in a day, yet you are always 9 hours ahead. Your afternoon is my morning, my afternoon is your evening, I am trying to catch up, for lost time, but I can never seem to be able to. Time is cruel, time is unyielding, it never waits for anybody. If the world were to end tomorrow, it would end 9 hours earlier for you.
Can you please tell me what I missed in your 9 hours, what happened in your world, the time you spent more on this earth, your stories?
Our time difference is not just the difference in hours on the world clock.
It is the different times we grew up in, the different stages in our life when we first met, the time elapsed since we have been apart, and the time that will inevitably continue to pass as we grow separately.
We’ve met in times that will never come again, so one would be naive to try to create something enduring. So I removed your time from my world clock in a childish manner, to preserve our story just as it is: timeless and untouched by the erosion. Without continuance and in defiance of our time difference. Is that naive?