Solstice

We admit it—

We forgot to flip the calendar.

We let our phones run out of batteries.

We got confused by Daylight Savings Time.

We didn’t know how to set the new clock.

We lost grandpa’s pocket watch and with it any idea of what time, what day, what year it actually was.

We tried to ask the scientists, but they didn’t know any more about what time it was than we did.

What, should we go get our astrolabes? they laugh. Seriously, screw off, we’re making a moosemouse.

And so everyone begins to say inane things like, Ugh, hump day, am I right? then staring in the hope someone will correct their guess.

How the hell were we supposed to know it was our job to keep track of all the Wednesdays? We trusted that someone was in charge of this. Just like we trust the faucets to give us water or someone to answer the emergency services line. A little timekeeping didn’t seem like too much to ask from a society we’ve been paying for with all of our money and health and life.

I thought Larry had time covered, someone says.

Yeah, Larry, what the hell? someone else says. What year is it?

Let’s see, Larry says, about four years ago I started saying I was nine years younger than I am so that means—

And then Larry runs away screaming, and we’re back to where we were. Nowhere. Anywhere. Timeless in the bad sense of the word. Which we’re pretty sure didn’t previously exist, but now it’s the only sense we know.

We take a vote on how to solve the problem and, as always, democracy settles it perfectly—

This year, the longest day of the year will be two years long. Long enough to stop trying to remake how things were and reset with how things should be.

Let’s call it the super solstice! Janice says. The news can make fancy graphics, and we’ll all get weeks of content out of this.

We tell her to shut up. But, yes, the news does do this. People use the hashtag, fast food restaurants have special items, everyone throws a party with invitations reading, From 8pm to two years from 8pm.

It’s not so bad at first, this single, months-long day, but soon we see the problems. It’s impossible to calculate pet ages. Nobody knows when to change their oil. Every couple gets in a fight about their anniversary.

You still think there’s a difference between yesterday and tomorrow? the scientists taunt. God, you’re basically cavemen.

And maybe they’re right, but we don’t think it’s nostalgia that has brought us to our knees, doing calculations in the dirt, making sundials out of our designer hats.

We never wanted to go back, only a way to know if we ever went forward.

Adam Peterson

Adam Peterson's fiction has appeared in Epoch, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.