The procrastinator

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Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. One man decided to take the power back; even the playing field as it were, he began by smashing his watch. Over the next few months the news was dominated by stories of a serial shop-wrecker, some anarchic man or woman was systematically working their way around the country, breaking into shops and leaving destruction and chaos in their wake. At first the media frenzy nicknamed the perpetrator “the thief of time” as it appeared he/she was only targeting clock and watch proprietors; however it soon became common knowledge that the deviant culprit was not actually stealing anything, simply destroying and defacing. 2

Other nicknames and puns began to appear, in the world’s media and on the tongues of its denizens, further fuelling the fire of public ferment, “the procrastinator – I’ll be back…but not sure when I’ve lost my watch…” “Killing time” “ a time to kill” “un-timely death” “watch-out,” etcetera etcetera. Before long the media circus reached its peak, the Time Assassin, now synonymous with the terrible Grandfather Clock butcherings of 2010 had become public enemy number one. Even the right-wing religious zealots seemed to have their attentions detracted from their “worthy causes” such as persecuting ethnic minorities, and exiling shellfish eaters as it seemed even the Vatican was not safe. Pope John-Paul-Ringo O’Beatle was shocked and appalled upon returning from his yearly baby seal bludgeoning contest to find his six-hundred year old holy grandfather clock lying in pieces. His calls to have Captain Hook arrested appeared to fall upon deaf ears however and he was later sectioned for public regression. 3

Thanks to Colin Powell, “Get mad then get over it,” had been the Zeitgeist of the time but this was all about to change. The general public’s legs were far too short to allow them to simply get over these most heinous of crimes, and the “let-it-go” ladders far too flimsy. So it came to pass in the fall of 2011; three years into the mysterious time extirpations, that a lynch mob was formed. It was cited as a hark back to the “good old days of yore,” finally the world had something to unite against (although within the mob there were several feuding factions – “the Watchmen” hated the “Grandfathers” who in turn were in militant disrepute with the “Pocket-Watch-Out-Crew” and all three were somewhat ambivalent as far as the “Mantelpiece Monitors” were concerned). Out of the feuding factions, one in particular was the most pugnacious and that was the “Millennium Bug Bombers” a group of individuals that until recently had been hiding in the hills, grievously unaware that the rest of the world had not in fact been wiped out by nuclear holocaust initiated by digital calendar clocks being reset to zero post 1999.4

It was unclear what fuelled the furnace of these other factions other than the joys of scape-goating, but the kerosene behind the Millennium Bug-Bombers rocket-fuelled rebuttals was embarrassment. They themselves had been subject to media meddling and were no strangers to ridicule and excoriation from the tabloids; attacking the persona of the “Clock Cropper” provided a valuable smokescreen from their own insecurities. 5

The UN tried to bring in peacekeepers as violence and protests began spilling out into the streets and the rabble-rousing rioters were constantly reminded over loud-speaker that “for every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” The majority of the dissenters had failed GCSE maths so these pleas fell upon innumerate ears with some insurrectionists believing they would actually gain time. 6

The Millennium Bug Bombers had taken to loitering around the scene of the crimes, following the “Transient terminator2 all over the always one step behind. They attempted to predict where he would strike next but with limited success. One Sunday in November however, they caught a lucky break. One of their leaders – Billy-Boy-Barstaurd - recently promoted through the ranks, had auspiciously predicted the Rolex Wrangler would strike at the local Kitchen store, smashing the clocks on all the white goods with glee. Proclaiming himself as some sort of super-hero, the recent receiver of laser-eye surgery had proclaimed “I see things through eyes that I’m not sure are my own.” Billy’s fame was short lived however when he was run over by a Specsavers van on his way to his soapbox. 7

Billy had however led the coalition to the right place and after an uninterrupted clock-killing spree of nearly 4 years, the culprit was caught and sentenced to…sentenced to…8