Compare and contrast

I knew I forgot to pay one a the bills yesterday but I just thought it was the cable or the internet or somethin an I guess it musta been worse cause when I step outside this mornin somebody's shut off the time. Now everything's happenin all at once an there's all this history spilled all over the lawn. Now I got all these crusaders sackin the mailbox an morlocks hibernatin under the porch an at least a dozen Louis the Sixteenths grazin on the azalea bushes. Look at the mess! I try to clean things up a little by sortin past people an future people into different piles but nobody's helpin out, what with all the drunk Winston Churchhills harassin the cave people an the mastodon steppin on Jesus an the radiation zombies wanderin off to chew on parts of Harry Truman. |fafblog|

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Once upon a time there was a man who laid linoleum, a fantastical fellow, who did not believe in clocks. He would get up from the floor, his measuring foot in hand, and stare at the clock. Sometimes he would move his hand through the air in the neighborhood of the clock as though he were trying to feel something, a current or stream. "Nothing there," he would mutter as he returned to his linoleum on the floor, patting the linoleum, pleased to rest his hand on something tangible. He'd go on taking measurements and at intervals he would caress his measuring stick and would talk to it. A few minutes later he would look up at the clock, almost angrily. The clock went on ticking. At times he'd clench his fist. Whole mornings he would pass in this way, making love to his foot-rule and fighting the clock. He would speak scornfully of everything pertaining to the clock, calling it an imposter. "Time," he would say, "time, seconds, minutes, hours, days, knights and their ladies. Bah!" He was grim. Then he'd look at his ruler. "Tell me, tell me, how many inches in an hour?" And he'd look at the clock and come down hard on the next nail in the linoleum. |O.K. Bouwsma|