Some said it was a dimensional shift. Some suggested that time has become unfocused, causing the days to overlap. I still say it’s always been this way, and we were simply sleeping before.
The first thing that happened, though, is that the frogs stopped singing. Because of this small thing, the bats have disappeared and there are fewer and fewer tadpoles. Luck is harder to find.
I have to wear a blind to sleep; constant illumination loses its cheer in a fortnight (no pun intended).
At first, we all thought we’d be more productive. We laughed at the whole ‘daylight savings’ debacle, becoming spendthrifts in a mad frenzy. The pundits knew, though—they warned us: “GOV’S TOP DOCS ADVISE RESTRAINT.” We laughed at them, too.
Now our heads hang like wrung chickens’, wobbling about in a neverending morning-after fugue. The mess but no party.
The crows have already banded together, creating their own murder of blackened skies, taking turns as ink blotters soaking up the light. We look to them as examples, those clever birds; always first to adapt. Everyone rues the day when they’ll be gone too.
The Big Heads at NASA are thinking up a moon-sized crow with a Google brain, expropriating a memory of seasons for machine learning. Early failed tests have indicated mass floods and cock-a-doodle-doos louder than Mt Krakatoa.
Shift workers haven’t gone home for years now. Amidst much controversy, churches are editing the opening lines of the Book of Genesis. Clocks are the new environmental pariah, overflowing landfills alongside lithium-ion batteries. Couples are breaking up over anniversary disagreements and the lack of morning erections.
No one really knows what day of the week it still is.
Ash Hamilton ©2024
Order my novella, “The Brave New World of Oswald P. Lesser” at your local bookstore or online here.
Order my book of poetry, “Last of the Marlboro Men” at your local bookstore or online here.
Scott (Ash) Hamilton 
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