Edgar blamed a faulty alarm clock for oversleeping, causing him to miss his usual train. He would have to wait a full 20 seconds for the next train to arrive. It was a waste of his precious time, something that would surely be noticed by his boss. He valued his job because in this economy, not everyone enjoyed the privilege of working a whole ten-minute workday. He had come to enjoy his position as a dirt inspector, a highly respected vocation in the world of wheelbarrows, where subterranean housing is the construction de rigueur. He was proud that even though he was only nine months old, he had already worked at the job for four months, nearly half his life.
Life in wheelbarrow Nano-World, where everything—including time—is measured in 1:48 “O” model railroad scale, had not always been rosy for Edgar. Born into the low-rent Wheelbarrow Handle District, he had moved through the ranks of the working class to the much smoother-riding Rubber Wheel District.
At the “O” Scale Wheelbarrow Universe Fair (OSWUF), wheelbarrows from far-flung regions convene for their annual pilgrimage. Wheelbarrow communities tie up alongside one another, throwing up temporary bridges, and the seven-hour long party begins, the full vacation time allotted to a wheelbarrow citizen. A gigantic wheelbarrow is at the center, where the two top contending wheelbarrow football teams may compete for as long as a mind-boggling 4 minutes to win Wheelbarrowland’s championship.
“O” scale wheelbarrow communities have, by necessity, restricted populations, so it’s hard to find a mate if the girl next door doesn’t strike one’s fancy. It’s not surprising that at the championship football game, a roasted corn vendor named Rosabelle caught Edgar’s eye. Time and again Edgar purchased the butter-slathered corn, tipping her generously until he ran out of cash. It was she that, at game’s end, his belly aching from too much roasted corn, helped him home to his own wheelbarrow. Before the OSWUF concluded, she had rented a spare bedroom in Edgar’s wheelbarrow from a neighbor, and the rest, as they say, is wheelbarrow history. After patiently courting her for nearly 8 days, they married. Two children had followed (one of them born prematurely, a mere five day pregnancy), requiring him to add bedrooms to his second basement subterranean dwelling.
“O” scale wheelbarrow dwellers are different people from you and me, but they are not stupid people. Edgar’s job as a professional dirt inspector provides him time to contemplate the world beyond his wheelbarrow, the Standard Time World that houses you and me. To Edgar, it’s a slow motion world, where all moves at a snail’s pace.
Life in the Standard Time World defies reason. In the Standard Time World, Edgar struggles to fathom that his current lifespan of 1-½ years would be stretched to 48 times that length—perhaps as many as a mind-boggling 80 years in Standard Time World!
With this much Methuselah-scale time on their hands, he reckons Standard Time World dwellers could do so much more with it. Why would Standard Time World residents conceive of ever more ways to waste their precious time with trivialities, warfare and petty selfish indulgences?
A devout worshiper, Edgar turns his voice to God. “The gift of time,” he says, as he utters his evening prayers, “is one of the greatest gifts of all. Help me to value the months, the hours and the minutes; I am grateful for the 18 months of life that You may give me. Help me to use my moments well.”
“And, Lord,” he adds, “help the Standard Time World dwellers to use theirs well, too.”