| He prepared for days, readying himself for
the definition of time proper; gathering wood, constructing boards,
slowly mixing and applying paint. Two weeks were to be written as one
solid block of duration, in straightforward black & white text:
'Sunday Twenty-fourth of July Two Thousand and Five to Sunday Seventh
of August Two Thousand and Five'. But, "It starts here, it ends there - that's bollocks. Time is a failed idea: it's never that pure and seamless. Nothing is ever truly a blank sheet to start with and nothing ever truly ends." And so in protest a corner of time was sawn off, wrapped in brown paper and carried across a continent (forward one hour). He trusted that the postal authorities would collaborate and prepared the package to be returned ( back one hour). The postman, completing his round with the fragment still wedged in his carry-bag, checked the address, chaped the door - no answer - and dropped a note through the letter box. For weeks the postman built a pile of cards on the gallery floor, each specifying a future date, indicating a certain time and an inevitable deadline. The fragment remained in the Royal Mail warehouse (it was later destroyed) and time, still maimed, sat brokenly in the empty space. |
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