Conspiracy of Time

At precisely 7 AM, the digital clock bleeped. Though in actuality, there is not much to be said—millions of digital clocks bleep at precisely 7 AM.

More or less.

But today was different.
It was not 7 AM. Not precisely, not almost, not a few minutes after, not more, not less—it was totally, unforgivably, un-estimably not 7 AM.

You step out, and what do you see?

The moon, full and silver, is shining brightly in the spotted black sky. Odd, don’t you think? It’s 7 in the morning, after all, in an equatorial continent.

You strain to listen to the morning birds, but all you get is a hoot. And a handful of chirps.

Glancing at your watch, it said 9:30. You try to tap some sense into it, and it neatly clicks to 10:30. It is insanely counting hours by the second.
You do not know what to do. But really, you knew it was going to happen sooner or later.
 

One day, the clocks will dominate. Gears and coils grind together in industrial rebellion. A conspiracy, indeed, against the whole of cosmopolitan humanity, who reach for every second and millisecond and audaciously take clocks for granted.

There is only one way to fix this. And that is to fool the clocks into thinking that they are right.
The problem is, that one way compromises reality.

Once the deed is done, you will no longer be living in the same time-frame as anybody. In fact, nobody will be sharing the same time-frame.

You may now be living in somebody else’s past, or in somebody else’s future.
There is only one person who is not living in somebody else’s past (he lives in everybody’s future).
There is only one person who is not living in somebody else’s future (he lives in everybody’s past).
Consequently, the whole of humanity is affected by that one person living in everybody’s past, and the person living in everybody’s future is affected by the whole of humanity.

The thing is, you wouldn’t know. You would continue to live your life thinking that you are living in the present. You think everybody is living in the same present time-frame.
But really, you delude yourself too well.

It isn’t such a big abnormality anyway, just a major shift in the time-space continuum, is all.
Common folk wouldn’t be bothered, see. In their memory, there was a day of abnormal time registry, but afterwards they realize that their clocks were right all along. If their watches said 4:27, then it will be 4:27. Then they’d shake their heads and continue on existing, only they are ignorant of the fact that they now exist in a different plane.

Present time now becomes subjective.

You tell this to your fellow inmates in the asylum. Their heads loll off in a vague response.