A Day In The Life of a Day

It’s hard to say when I first became existent. I was created out of human thought as they lay time upon the world. I am born at midnight and reborn every one-hundred-and-forty-four hours. My name is Monday GMT. I have brothers and sisters all over the world, created out of different slices of time. As I begin to envelop the sleeping world the sky is a dark metallic blue, so deep as to be bordering purple blackness. Not everything is sleeping, but there is peace and calm. I like my first few hours, settling into myself as I help humanity order its world.

  Clocks are the real drawback to being me. They try to capture and cut up little parts of me and the feeling is not pleasant – like thousands of little cages trying to snap shut around every part of me. Still, with their ticks and buzzes clattering across my being, I see out my first few hours and make it to dawn.
 
  Dawn is glorious. Simply glorious. We fill each other completely, time and space lit up in the early glare of the sun. It never gets old for me, this burst of creation and possibility that repeats endlessly but always subtly nuanced – in me there is always a fresh start, I can be looked to as the canvas on which to sketch new lives.
 
  I do like humanity. I owe them my origination after all. I could not live apart from those my zone touches. Their minds bathe me in energy as they receive likewise from the sun, I glimpse thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears. I catch words before they reach ears, tears before they reach the cheek, laughter before it leaves the throat and mingles with the open air of the city square. I am present in every city, every town, every village and field that takes its time from me. I tend to focus my attention on areas with fewer clocks, but it’s a losing battle because humans are obsessed with recording me as accurately as possible – and the more accurate they are, the more it hurts. It is, however, a price I am only to eager to pay for my coexistence amongst them.

  Phones are starting to ring, each pulsing brrring regulated by my heartbeat. As usual, there is a sudden spike in the movement within my expanse as work beckons for millions. And as usual, I feel pain for those for whom this new day is suffering, who do not have jobs to go to.
 
  It’s a cacophony within me now, everyone and everything moving with increased speed and vigour. I get stretched almost to the point of tearing, the fabric of myself thin like a veil as I hang over human activity. It’s around the time they are eating their lunch that I feel the overextension the most. I will admit, I feel pain that everyone seems to want to pass beyond me these days. Their bodies remain in me but their minds are on my next incarnation not yet present – what they call Next Week, my future self. This is frustrating and is getting worse.
 
  Still, the sun starts its descent and humanity gets duller throughout my afternoon presence. Kettles are refilled for a pick-me-up coffee and people start to daydream. It’s peculiar when someone weaves a dream out of me, a kind of creative process I share directly, between Day and human. I try to induce positivity and elation – it is important for me that my existence is appreciated to the fullest and that can only be achieved in happiness.
 
  Feet are slapping pavements, tip-tapping children rushing from school, and not long afterwards the trudge of the workers and shoppers. I have been thoroughly used up by now, though I will not die and be reborn for a number of hours yet. I will enjoy the relaxation that comes with human evenings. I cocoon the living and find shelter in their consciousness in return.

  It’s mellow and enjoyable, but sometimes evening does carry a greater threat of violence. Violence is like clocks, it is painful to me. It feels like a stain on my soul, if Monday GMT could be said to have one. I believe I do, for I think and feel as keenly as those I contain within me. TVs come flickering into life and I feel the calm settling over my part of the planet. Pages of books flip, voices travel over phone lines, personal computers scream over the internet like aircraft, exploring, learning and sharing information. Tea grown under the sun of one of my many brothers and sisters is brewed and sipped in my embrace. Tears fall too, and the whole panoply of emotion and action plays out underneath and inside me as I move towards the final moments before I flicker and momentarily die.
 
  Before that though, is dusk. Dawn reverses itself and the sun moves into the territory of one of my brethren. I am joined by the nocturnal creatures, from badgers to night shift workers. I will leave them soon, though returning once more will feel almost instantaneous.
 
  Lights snap off in sequence, it’s like fireworks in reverse. I feel the equally snappy sensation of minds leaving my presence and drifting off towards the dawn of my sister Tuesday. My work is almost done for myself and I anticipate the midnight blue that will greet me after I have briefly flickered out of existence. Above all, I rest in gratitude that the humans wanted a Monday GMT.