Springboard 24: Tick-tock Tick-tock
Ever have a moment on the job when time seemed to stand still? What about a moment when it went too fast and there just wasn't enough time? Talk about one, or both.
Armor-piercing ammunition is made with a hardened penetrator within a copper or cupro-nickel jacket. Upon impact on a hard target, the copper case is destroyed, but the penetrator continues and penetrates the target. In other words, these rounds go through police-issue Kevlar like it were wet toilet paper. Give a handful of them to a pair of “emotionally abused” brothers and you get the picture…and you’d better bring a body bag and a mop.
Talk about time? Time stopped the second I got the phone call that Woody had been hit.
It takes seven minutes, forty-nine seconds to get from the Morgue to Boston General.
I know. I timed it once.
That day it took an eternity. Or at least long enough to relive every moment, of every day, of the last four years… all in Technicolor detail.
You always assume you have time. Time to wait. Time to decide. Time to enjoy the company of another before nature take its course and the relationship gets too complicated to survive.
Trust me, it doesn’t always work out that way and the next thing you know your Chance passes you by in the blink of an eye. Or in my case, the split-second impact of a sniper rifle’s round, at pointblank range.
Seconds. I only had a handful of seconds to tell Woody what I had been too self-absorbed to say all along.
I needed him. I loved him. I could be the person he wanted me to be. Still, it was far to short to justify a half a decade of some twisted mating dance. It took something just shy of an eon for the surgeons to stop his bleeding. Woody survived to be able to throw those words right back in my face.
Then…just like that…I realized I’d let time all but destroy one of the best things that had ever happened to me.
Fast, slow. Time is never on your side. So, live life while you can. It's not that life is short, just death is so damn long. And it can be as lonely as hell if you don't manage your time.
Armor-piercing ammunition is made with a hardened penetrator within a copper or cupro-nickel jacket. Upon impact on a hard target, the copper case is destroyed, but the penetrator continues and penetrates the target. In other words, these rounds go through police-issue Kevlar like it were wet toilet paper. Give a handful of them to a pair of “emotionally abused” brothers and you get the picture…and you’d better bring a body bag and a mop.
Talk about time? Time stopped the second I got the phone call that Woody had been hit.
It takes seven minutes, forty-nine seconds to get from the Morgue to Boston General.
I know. I timed it once.
That day it took an eternity. Or at least long enough to relive every moment, of every day, of the last four years… all in Technicolor detail.
You always assume you have time. Time to wait. Time to decide. Time to enjoy the company of another before nature take its course and the relationship gets too complicated to survive.
Trust me, it doesn’t always work out that way and the next thing you know your Chance passes you by in the blink of an eye. Or in my case, the split-second impact of a sniper rifle’s round, at pointblank range.
Seconds. I only had a handful of seconds to tell Woody what I had been too self-absorbed to say all along.
I needed him. I loved him. I could be the person he wanted me to be. Still, it was far to short to justify a half a decade of some twisted mating dance. It took something just shy of an eon for the surgeons to stop his bleeding. Woody survived to be able to throw those words right back in my face.
Then…just like that…I realized I’d let time all but destroy one of the best things that had ever happened to me.
Fast, slow. Time is never on your side. So, live life while you can. It's not that life is short, just death is so damn long. And it can be as lonely as hell if you don't manage your time.