NOT HIS TIME...

I remember watching a show on TV years ago, about where they found a prehistoric man frozen and preserved in the ice near the North Pole. With nothing to lose, the scientists worked and worked, thawed the man out and finally brought him back to life. A man that had lived approximately 25,000 years ago...

Needless to say, the poor man was in an acute state of shock, to wake up in a strange place and a strange time; nothing like anything he had known. All these strange people moving about and all looking at him. I can only imagine what must have been going through  this 25,000 year old man's mind. He was making noises totally unfamiliar to the modern day scientists, but some of the local Eskimo elders recognized that what he was saying was in a language even ancient to them.They could barely make out what he was trying to say, but finally realized he was asking a question. He was asking...where his children were? I hate to say it but I could almost feel the pain of his loss... As frightened as this man was, he still worried, first, about his loved ones. Right away, many of the scientists realized they had made a mistake reviving this man. He was lost and didn't belong here...in this time...this place...

I have heard some say they would like to live forever, but what if we could, but our loved ones could not? I think the loss of family and things familiar to us is a part of who we are and without these, we would be lost and like a fish out of water. I guess maybe this is why we live for a time, then our time is past. It is time to move on and leave this place we have known  for such a short time.

In the movie, the scientists built a place for the prehistoric man, duplicating conditions that he would have known in his day...in his time. Despite their efforts, the man remained lost. This was not his place in time and he was slowly declining in health and spirit.
The ending to the movie was a real shocker and in a moment of desperation, the man escaped from his simulated enclosure, managed to climb in to a helicopter(like a bird to him, I guess), without being seen. Once the machine was airborne, they realized what had happened, but too late...The pilot was helpless to do anything and the scientists below could only watch in horror as the man leaped from the helicopter and to his death.

The local elders told of an ancient belief and stories of people flying away at their time of death. This was not this man's world and he apparently decided to fly home to be with his family.

When the dismayed scientists laid his broken body in the earth, some of the local people came and placed a small  totem to mark his spot. Whoever this man had been, because of the language similarity, he may have been an ancestor. It was the least they  could do...

TICKING OF THE CLOCK...

As I sat in my kitchen this morning, I realized how quiet it was. I could hear the smooth running of the Refrigerator in the corner, and the even louder sound of the clock ticking...For a change, there seemed to be no noise from outside and I had really never realized how noisy that clock was, before,  Tick, tick, tick...An almost haunting and antagonizing tease...

After a while the sound of the clock became almost hypnotic. Tick, tick! Before long I started thinking back to an earlier time. I remember a time when we visited different family members, long ago. Even a a young boy, I had noticed how utterly quiet  their houses seem, when the conversation had momentarily ran out and nobody was saying anything. I remember the sudden, alarming silence that filled the room. back in those days, a lot of people either  didn't have a television or it wasn't running 24 hours a day, as some do now. If someone wasn't talking, the only sound was of the Wall clock just ticking away; just counting off time and lives...

All these years later, as I sit and listen to my own clock ticking in the background, I realize that all those people listened too long to that old clock, and now...are gone...
Clocks may have their purpose but can also be a grim reminder that we only have so much time...Then, things run down...

Maybe it is better if we DON'T know what  time it is. Reminders only seem to make things worse...