7 Time is Money
One day, it will be Angela giving lectures, but, for now, she watches. The way he flows between topics like they were all thoughts born in that order, that’s talent. The exact content of today’s lecture doesn’t interest Angela. She’s come to see him in his element, to better understand Luca Cangemi.
“Time was no mystery to early man. We gathered during the day and slept at night. Homo sapiens sensed change and migrated with the seasons.”
Angela’s PhD thesis is based on the time-perception of mice. It’s always mice; they’re expendable. Did he see her? Angela slumps in her middle-of-the-row seat. No escape.
“With the formation of civilisations, we began to investigate our senses. Aristotle described time as a ‘number of change with respect to before and after’. Only those capable of counting experience it, and if nothing changes, time doesn’t pass. It was more than a thousand years before his ideas were proven mistaken.”
It’s been exactly forty-eight days since the night of the faculty party. Luca would describe their one-night stand as a mistake. He’s still married. He has a daughter; they’re always married with kids.
“Newton’s principles were based on an external clock of absolute time, which always ticked on regardless of change or perception.”
The professor moves along the timeline of great men who contributed to the history of the subject. Always men. Will he become a slide in her lecture some day?
“Since Einstein rebranded time, there have been more discoveries, but really, like with all matters of science, the universe and us, they provide more questions than answers. Some claim that time cannot be universally defined or accurately measured; therefore, it ceases to exist.”
Angela looks at the sea of faces around her, drowned in unknowns. She thinks how far she’s come since her undergraduate days, only to put her academic career in jeopardy. She should demand the whole row stand up to let her out. She should leave and let him see that she’s leaving.
“Now, the grip of appointments and deadlines tightens each day. Is the desire of time to run the economy? If things were different, we might pay for goods with time and not with those meaningless banknotes we call money.”
When he strings ideas together, she doesn’t mind donating her precious free period to come and watch. But time is something he cannot give her. It’s been exactly forty-eight days since they were together. Angela knows, because that’s how long the baby has been growing inside her.
Universe 8B. Public transmission: At midnight, Monetary Reform Law comes into effect. From this point, the only legal tender will be Time-Based Currency (TBC). All electronic funds in other currencies will be converted as per the standardised rate. Please consult your personalised guide on how the Time-Barter System (TBS) affects you.
Angela reads the message, then reads it again. After years of transition, they’ve pulled the trigger. In four hours, money ceases to exist. It’s not that radical when you think about it. Money was crude. Still, the banking system didn’t even last a thousand years.
One banknote: worthless.
Her heart pounds and she triple-checks the message. It’s tonight. Can it ever be fair, putting a value on a person’s life? So many theories swim in her head but one message floats to the top. Midnight. Surely, the elderly will become worthless. And how can you pay back two-thirds of a dead soldier’s life?
She weighs up what to do with her last hours of freedom. Ironically, the calculated worth of a philosophy lecturer is low, so contemplation is not profitable in the short or long term. Angela’s hours reading the great works and pondering life’s bigger questions will not earn her enough minutes to buy essentials for Thomas.
Twenty unbranded nappies: thirty minutes of paper grading.
Angela likes to sing to Thomas, but she’ll be more careful from now on. She needs to save up Value Time Transactions (VTTs) minute by minute for the inevitable days lost to hospital appointments and prescription refills. Gazing out at the pounding sea, chopping root vegetables for a stew, a good night’s sleep, these are all missed opportunities to grow her worth.
One mother’s song to her child: one less pill. Unknown time off his life.
In her academic role, Angela will attempt to study the effects on a representative group. To explain the full TBT computer database and how minutes are taxed from the time-rich would be as complicated as explaining time itself. Society could start again, they said. Equal opportunities and wealth, they said. Yet, when an errant father, a famous time theorist, prefers to maximise VTTs over seeing his sickly son for one minute of a second weekend, the system is broken before it has begun. No matter how many times she reads the message, Angela will not be ready for midnight.
Time elapsed: £4.10 of labour of a tenured university professor