At 2:19 p.m. every day, we suddenly know. Everyone knows, the whole world. It stops all of us in our tracks, whatever we’re doing at that exact moment. At work, or on a bus, or in a field, in a forest, waiting in line at the grocery store. Even fast asleep, on the other side of the planet, because you can still know in your dreams. Of course you can. Within the first few seconds of knowing, we may hear a car crash in the distance, or a front door swinging open as some mother or father races off to their child’s school to wrap them up in their arms. Or we’ll see people just standing in the street, overcome, in shock, looking in all directions in newfound awe of their surroundings, and a healthy amount of fear. Knowing finally. Understanding completely. The stunned and silent sky punctuated with some laughter, some gasps, some screams.
The knowing never lasts for longer than a minute, with no possibility of remembering. Not even enough remembering to expect this tomorrow, yet again, at exactly the same time. Before the clock has reached 2:20, it’s long gone. But in those sacred and unreal seconds each afternoon, gazing into a stranger’s or a neighbor’s or a lover’s eyes, and seeing as if for the first time -- knowing, and knowing they know, too -- we somehow find whatever we need to make it to tomorrow.
Chris Scott's work has appeared in The New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs, HAD, hex literary, Okay Donkey, Lost Balloon, Milk Candy Review, and elsewhere. He is a regular ClickHole contributor and elementary school teacher in Washington, DC. You can read his work at chrisscottwrites.com.
