i often imagine possessing a certain impossibility that i call the ‘time bubble’. this magical bubble would allow me to stop time everywhere except in some circumference around myself. with such a bubble i could pause at any point in the day and write for six hours, or read for 72 hours, or sleep for six weeks, and no one would know because the rest of the world would be frozen. i would buy months and months worth of canned goods so that i could feed myself in the bubble. i would eat and exercise and sit and stare at the wall for hours and days with no interruptions. what paradise, what delicious luxury, what addicting elixir is solitude. to the non-bubble world i would appear to be aging rapidly. i would lose touch with friends (haven’t i already?) and would forget things that happened only hours ago (don’t i already?) because weeks would have passed for me in my bubble, solid uninterrupted weeks of reading and writing and sleeping and silence and nothing, no schedule, no requirements, nothing, nothing, and would i use it to death? would i age to a desiccated corpse in a few weeks, would i shrivel before your eyes? death is the cost of living either way