On the Loss of Time

Do you ever look up at the clock and feel shocked by how much time has passed you by? Do you ever wonder how you could have run out of time to see to some important task because of the sly passage of time as you worked on some less meaningful activity?  I’ve found the answer: Time Gnomes.  

As far as I have been able to determine, time gnomes bear no relation to forest or garden gnomes, but they are distant, upper-class cousins to house gnomes, who, as you know, primarily subsist on the human emotion of frustration, which they spur on by such pranks as moving keys and important papers, and stealing socks from the laundry.  Time gnomes, however, feed on a human’s lost time: They create a telepathic link with their victim, whose mind they then infuse with an addictive, mind-numbing paralytic that makes it near impossible to stop a given task or to act on passing thoughts to do something else.  Once in the grip of blank-eyed obsession, the victim enters a kind of temporal stasis, allowing the gnome to partake of the victim’s time until this state is interrupted, at which point the victim stirs from their telepathically-induced stupor and observes that they have lost track of time.

Note: This is merely an artist's depiction of a

gnome since none has ever been seen.

Photo courtesy of pixabay.

Like all gnomes, the temporal variety are skilled at remaining out of human sight, but the result of their feeding is proof enough of their existence.  I, myself, have become their victim more often than I care to admit, especially in the past week.  I’ve noticed lapses while I studied Spanish and while I made long, unsuccessful attempts to write blog posts (which are yet unfinished), also while browsing Facebook, reading a new Kindle book, and watching a dozen episodes of Castle in one sitting (though my attacker made use of human rationalization; since I still managed to crochet while I watched, the time gnome fooled me into thinking I was not in his grip).  

Time-suck attacks may cause the victim to be late, to forget appointments, or to neglect duties, resulting in unwelcome consequences, regret, and self-castigation, but otherwise a time suck has no known side effects. Some people, in fact, find the experience occasionally relaxing. However, such a zoned-out state presents special dangers while driving or using dangerous objects, from mere embarrassment to having missed a turn-off to injury or death from inattention-related accidents. Thus, a time gnome attack must be taken seriously, especially when life and limb are in the balance.

 Time gnomes, being elusive, cannot be combated by lay persons directly.  The best defenses against their insidious attacks are planning one’s day realistically and specifically, ensuring regular interaction with other people, playing lively music, talking to oneself, and using multiple daily alarms on a phone or other device to jolt oneself out of a time gnome’s grip just before important appointments or tasks.  Ideally, one will build up a mental discipline so as to notice when a time gnome begins an attack and then may take steps to remain alert and unaffected.
              Now that you are armed with this knowledge, I wish you good luck. We all need it.