It's been almost three weeks since yesterday. Another day or two and it will be tomorrow. My wife slowly stirs next to me. She is rolling over. Her arm comes down over me, falling like the minute hand of a clock. I think about my dreams. The blissful couple weeks each night that I can live at a normal pace.

Two days later I get in the shower. I turn the water on, and watch the droplets form on the showerhead. A few seconds later they spring forth and approach my face. My wife tries to sneak up on me, but I know she's coming hours before she pulls the curtain back. I wait at least a minute before turning and putting a carefully crafted look of surprise on my face.

Ten hours pass and I make us breakfast. My wife remarks that I always have everything ready so quickly. I wait five minutes, then spend the next ten turning and giving her a smile. She appreciates it when I wait. The toast should be ready in a few hours. That gives me at least 45 minutes to turn the eggs once more. I notice a fly hovering about, beating its tiny wings two or three times each second. I watch it for a few minutes, then casually reach out and pluck it by the right front leg between my thumb and forefinger.

A little over a day later, as I drive to the University research lab, I think about the three weeks or so of work ahead of me. I have plenty of time to think, as the drive is nearly a day long. My mind wanders, of course, but I spend most of it thinking of how I can undo all my work of so many years ago. I will doubtless have centuries to ponder the problem.

It began so innocently. My wife remarked that there's just not enough time in a day. I realized that I've been thinking the same thing for much of my life. Ever since high school, I was nothing but busy. And then I started to wonder if there was anything I could do about it. Relativity, time dilation, frames of reference, chronons... and it came to me.

The following months were a blur. Nothing is a blur anymore. The theory was sound, the principles all made sense. A prototype was developed. Initial success brought more and more funding. Think of the applications. Soldiers with lightning fast reflexes. Surgeons that could spend all the time they needed on a patient. Orgasms that went on for days...

Of course I volunteered. This was my baby, and no one else would be the first human test subject. We started out with something that we thought was moderate: a factor of 60. I thank God that the machine wasn't tested to its limit. The initial test was supposed to last minutes for them, hours for me. After six hours, I knew something was wrong. In two days time I was hysterical. It took me months to completely come to terms with what had happened. Several more months to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to interpret the sound waves striking my ear drums at a snail's pace. Of course, barely a week had passed for everyone else.

That was nearly 600 years ago. Ever since then my mind has been racing sixty times faster than my body and I still haven't found the answer. Nerve impulses race from one side of my brain to the other sixty times slower than they did before. Fast enough. If I concentrate hard enough, I can actually notice the slowdown in my head.  The slowdown of my body is much more noticeable.

The program has continued. There's been a few more test subjects, but since me, the needle has never been pushed beyond 1.05. They didn't come back either, but for them, it's barely noticeable.  If anything, it's a slight edge in reaction time.

Every second that goes by feels like a minute.

And I've been living like this for ten of your years.

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