Carpe Diem

Adam was boring.

My friend's story is about as ordinary as it gets. This guy was the poster child of uninteresting - steady job, fixed income, not good looking but not too bad either. In his lifetime, he'd never seen a peak of any emotion - his life a mini roller coaster of small joys and griefs that left him neither overtly ecstatic nor sickeningly nauseous.

In other words, he was the mascot of a race that had accomplished a lot, but given the overall scope of the universe - nothing all that impressive, really.

Then Adam got married.

If his significant other had made waves in his calm life, the birth of his first son created a tsunami. Poor, young Adam was thrust into fatherhood with no clue about how to deal with a child. Sure he was happy, but when you're at a loss even for the simplest things like putting a crying baby to sleep or - god forbid - changing diapers, you know you're in trouble.

Surprisingly, said trouble didn't come from his lack of experience. The baby grew into a pocket-version of Adam in three short years with a little TLC from his parents.

One day, Adam was walking down the stairs of his apartment, his three year old beside him. A small distraction - a text on his phone, a call perhaps, he doesn't remember now - made him lose his grip on his son's hand. His boy still quite young, didn't have the foresight to balance himself, should his father falter.

The boy fell headlong, crashing to the bottom of the stairs.

Adam - as you can imagine - was horrified. He did everything he could and more. Somehow the doctors saved the boy's life - but you couldn't escape an accident like that unscathed.

The boy had a traumatic head injury, as a result of which he could neither walk nor talk.

Adam spent his every waking hour caring for him. His guilt ensured that he would tend to him twenty four by seven. He strolled him around in his wheelchair and often talked to him - apologised to him. In his heart, he knew the boy would understand. He hoped that one day, his first son would return his "I'm sorry" with an "I forgive you" of his own.

Now meanwhile, realising that he had to atone for his mistakes and start over, Adam had another son. But what good is having another member of the family, when all you're going to do is pine over another? This boy grew up with no kindness from his father. Cold and ambitious, this son was an overachiever - with extravagant dreams and elaborate plans. He worked hard and never turned back.

By the time his father realised his son's absence - he was too far gone. He was a success story, true - but he had made sure he was out of Adam's reach when he did finally reach for him.

If this wasn't example enough of bad parenting, this friend of mine had a third child. This time it was a girl. Her father was so hung up over his sons that he never had time for her. Unlike her second brother, she needed her father's attention - she pined for his love but getting none, she clung to him, ever ignored.

This story may seem exceptional in a way - it's exceptionally sad, horrific even. You know what the world has come to when I say, I see this family everyday, everywhere. I see his elder son, in our tarnished hopes and stupid mistakes - now irrecoverable though we may spend every moment of our lives trying to get those minutes back - if only to make things right. He is the Past. I see the middle child of extravagant dreams and lavish plans, just out of reach because we lack the will power to reach out and make them happen. He is the Future. And his daughter, the youngest who so desperately craves our attention - though we most often choose to ponder about her brothers. She is the Present.

And my friend? He really is boring. I observe him everyday, all around me trying to achieve something if only to be recognised as a speck in the infinity of the universe.

He's none but the father of Time, Humanity.