In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce bends time in the mind of Payton Farqhuar. In less than a second Farquhar was dead, yet in that moment, in his own time, he traveled home to his wife. That gets us into the question of time – itself. Is it real? Is time bound to measurement? Is it something larger? Can time slow down? Can it speed up?

We know “clocks” measure 24 hours daylight to daylight usually in seconds, minutes and hours, but we change the clocks – we move them one hour back in the fall and bring them ahead one hour in the spring with daylight savings time. How can we shift arbitrary hours of a day? This change was tweaked as recently as 2007 when the April change was moved to March , and the October change was moved to November.

While this his not a huge deal, it does, in some way, say that measured time is flexible, but the question to all of you is deeper – more reflective.

We all, I suggest, have experienced days that seem to go on forever; maybe awaiting a call/text about a job, perhaps, and other days/weeks/months that flash by – where we say” “where did the time go?

Recently, Maura Judkis wrote an article for The Washington Post in which she discusses the concept of time on the age of Covid-19. Read the article: The link is below.

It’s Been Six Months. Our Sense Of Time Is Still Broken.

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In this reflective journal, discuss the concept/premise of time as you see it. You must use aspects of “Occurrence at Owl Creek” and Judkis’s article along with your own thoughts in this reflection. You can use personal examples. For example – in a car accident that takes seconds some say that it “went on forever, ” or it seemed that it took forever to get help to arrive in an emergency – when it fact it was just minutes. What is that all about?

You can also discuss your own sense of time during this pandemic when you were locked down. That certainly could be connected to the article.

Maybe you have a front-line online worker job (as many college students do); you had to/were forced to work with little or no PPE: bring that in as well.

This should be a least one page – double spaced. Upload as a Word.doc when it is complete. This is NOT a research essay; it is all about you and how you connect your ideas to the story and the article. What to you think about time?