I Am Jack's Lost Sense of Time and Space

You wake up and it's March 2010 and you're in Bagram, looking out at snow-capped mountains rising up miles away above the banks of dust.  An age passes and it's two days later and you're being buffeted by wind (carrying dirt and dust) and it considers raining.

You wake up and it's April 2010 and you're in Kabul.  The sun shines.  Two months go by and it's only the next day.  You try to figure out ways to pass the time.  You stay glued to the computer, watching friendly lives move on at a startling pace.

You wake up and somehow it's June; you're in Dubai; you're in South Carolina; you're in Chicago; you're drunk; you're eating more deep dish pizza; you're watching more Cubs baseball at Wrigley cathedral; you're in Dubai; you're in Bagram; you're in Kabul; it all took place in 20 seconds.

Time stops again.

You wake up and it's July; your boss has gone insane. You take a deep breath.  You look up and it's three minutes later but it might have been three months.  You look up and it IS three months later.

You're in Kabul; you're in Bagram; you're in Dubai; you're in Beijing; you're in Tokyo; you're in Kyoto; you're in Nara; you're in Osaka; you're drunk on a roller coaster in the rain; you're in Kobe; you're in Himeji; you're railing along at approaching 200mph; you're in the mountains; you're in Kamikochi; you're in Yokohama; you're bellowing Karaoke with four women; you're in Yudanaka; there are snow monkeys in a hot spring; you're in a hot spring with Japanese men; you're in Tokyo; you're in Dubai; you're in Bagram; you're in Kabul; it all took place in 20 seconds.

You wake up and it's whatever day. You look at your watch and it's seconds since the last time you looked but somehow feels like hours or days or months; you switched departments; you look at your watch and it's time for your next vacation.

You wake up and you're in Dubai; Scotch; Cairo; Alexandria; Aswan; Abu Simbel; Kom Ombo; Edfu; Scotch; Luxor; Cairo; Scotch; Dubai; Bagram; Kabul. Wait. What?

You wake up and you can't get used to being back at work.

You wake up and it's been a year.  It's been a blink of an eye and an eternity. 

You wake up and it's the same day it's always been; it's cold; it's hot; it's clear; it's dusty.

Today there's an earthquake.  That's different. 

Tomorrow there's not.  Tomorrow you'll be in Mexico; tomorrow will be July and you'll be in the same chair in the same clothes wearing the same hat but you'll be 32, but then you'll be in Moscow or Sidney;

or it will be October and you'll be in Charleston or Rio de Janiero or maybe one or the other or maybe both; hell, why not Buenos Aires;

or it'll be December and you'll be in the same chair in the same clothes wearing the same hat having the same conversations with the same people; or you'll be 35 and hit your fiftieth country and your seventh continent;

or you'll wonder why you're wasting your life;

or you'll wonder how you got so lucky;

or all your friends will be married and you feel tinges of regret;

or you'll be free;

or you won't have the slightest idea.

You wake up and it is as it is and couldn't be any other way.

You wake up.