"The Flat"

Right, I know the title sucks, but it's a working one. Anyway, I got this idea for a feature script around last October I believe, in fact I can pinpoint the exact night: Halloween, and I was walking back to the Buckingham along Wabash barefoot, well in socks anyway, clad in a Batman, form-of: Adam West costume. It was that night that propelled me onto the train of thought that would become this script idea, because somebody at Zac's party mentioned something about how they never had any time to get anything done anymore, time seemed to be flying by so fast now, and something about that really clicked with me. Reason being that I felt exactly the same way; I was a 22-year old graduating college student who couldn't--still can't--manage time and could only watch helplessly as it slipped fleetingly through my fingers as if it were something tangible like sand. The days and nights were blending together and it was becoming much more difficult to square away even a couple of hours to write. I realized I was subconsciously re-evaluating my values in life and spending time in new, ultimately fruitless ways. The "time" wasn't going anywhere but out of my own scope of awareness. I was just wasting it, plain and simple. Willingly. I realized that my perception of time was constantly changing as I grew older. Each unit of time that I lived became a smaller percentage of the grand total, out of all the units I had spent and was spending on this earth.

So naturally, I decided to channel this thought process into something useful, my next creative endeavor.

That was 8 months ago. Jesus. Anyway, 8 months, one birthday, one semester, several failed writing projects, and a whole shitload of needless drama later, here I am. I still have the idea.

And part of the reason I'm excited to get to work on it now is because of a flurry of inspiration that came last night when I blinked back at the following facebook status:

"(Name) rushes toward the center of time, where the moment is frozen forever."

Apparently it's from "Einstein's Dreams," where the following quotes exist:

"At the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go."

"Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time, there is no life."

"Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case."

Needless to say, I really dug this stuff. It got me thinking again, about my idea and what I could do with it. It's about our perception of time, how we perceive that invisible force that pushes us along, changes us, erodes us, kills us. What is time, anyway? Does time exist? If there is no passage of time, can sensation, and consciousness, even occur?

What if you found a room where if you entered it, time froze on the outside? Your physical body would not age and only your consciousness could perceive the passage of time? You could theoretically remain in this room for days, years, lifetimes, and complete entire bodies of work, while your consciousness aged but everything else froze still. What if your consciousness could age independently of your external reality?

This setup, while simple, brought up a bunch of other inquiries. Story possibilities. What, then, if your consciousness started losing its ability to detect the passage of time while within the room? you would be unable to determine for how long you stayed inside. A day could be a hundred years could be one second, and you wouldn't know the difference. Could you even leave the room? Would you be trapped forever in eternity? In one frozen moment forever? Does the inside of the room even exist in space?

I realize I am implying the existence of a soul. If your body does not age inside the room, and your consciousness is merely electrical signals and chemical processes in your brain, then how else could consciousness even be possible?

If no time passes inside the room except for your consciousness, how is physical work/the creation of art/etc possible? To do anything physical, to make any imprint on reality, requires the passage of time. If time does not exist, then nothing outside your consciousness can happen. Your physical body cannot move, because doing so, moving from point A to point B in three-dimensional space, requires the passage of time, the fourth dimension. Your consciousness, in this scenario, would be trapped inside the room forever.

Obviously more deliberation on this is necessary. In any case, the concept of a room with special temporal properties is still one that interests me. And maybe the title "Flat," as it refers to a scenario in which the fourth dimension, time, is removed, causing physical reality to be frozen, applies after all.