Ironically, the change has been progressing slowly. I barely even noticed anything was happening in the first week. Then I thought my phone was getting old, and that my car engine was breaking down, and that I was having hearing problems when I talked to people, until Occam’s Razor finally tipped in favor of the unbelievable.
I’m up to about 5 seconds per second now. At least, that’s the best I can estimate from going “1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi…” while waiting for the seconds to tick by. It was 4 seconds per second last month, and 3 seconds per second the month before that. What’s weird is that, even though I move and think faster, I still only get tired at night and have to eat about as much per day. Like instead of me getting faster or the world getting slower, I’m getting shifted outside the normal progression of time altogether.
What used to be a twenty-minute commute by car now feels longer than it takes to walk. I’m not quite faster than a car on the road with my normal walking speed yet, but it’s pretty easy to run around cars when I jaywalk and ignore the Do Not Cross signals.
My boss keeps getting mad at me for “lazing off” (at least, from what I can make out from his taffy-stretched speech). Never mind that even just a day of work turns into an entire week’s worth of shifts from my perspective. I hope I don’t get fired. I still need money, and I’m not fast enough for a permanent life of crime yet. Bullets are still too fast to dodge. Worst case scenario, I don’t think I’d miss my car if I sold it.
I’ve been getting really into reading lately. I used to be able to watch movies and TV by setting the playback speed to max, but even that doesn’t help now. My phone’s been getting noticeably more sluggish, and I know it’s only going to get worse. Plus, I needed to cut back on social media anyways.
I am worried about what will happen if things keep going at this rate. Hanging out with friends in person is almost unbearable, but I can still stay in touch by texting. Even then, though, they’re getting slower and slower to respond. I don’t want to be surrounded by people but alone, forever. I hope this is temporary.
I don’t think it is.
