The conference room clock ticks three seconds behind the hallway clock, which runs seventeen seconds ahead of my phone. The discrepancy creates a low-frequency hum that I seem to be the only one who notices—temporal tinnitus that started six months ago and has been worsening ever since.
"Riley, are you with us?" Janet's voice cuts through the chronological static.
I blink back to the present moment, which is 2:47 PM according to the conference room clock, 2:48 according to the hallway clock, and 2:46:30 according to my phone. The quarterly budget meeting, which was supposed to start at 2:30, is still cycling through the same slides.
"Sorry," I say, employing my perfected apologetic tone. "Could you repeat the question?"
Janet's expression shifts through the familiar sequence: irritation, recognition, then carefully modulated patience. "The timeline for the new client onboarding system?"
Timeline. The word creates a small ripple in the air between us, like heat distortion. I've started noticing these visual glitches whenever people use temporal language around me—"deadline," "schedule," "punctual" —that generate brief distortions in space, which feel real to my hypervigilant attention.
"Two weeks," I say, though I have no clear memory of when I started the project. Time has become increasingly negotiable in my vicinity, making project management feel like attempting cartography while the landscape is constantly shifting.
After the meeting, I walk back through the hallways where emergency exit signs flicker between different evacuation times. The building's clock network has developed temporal personality disorders—each maintaining its sense of when things should happen, creating a cacophony that makes my head ache.
My computer shows seventeen "URGENT" emails with timestamps spanning three hours, though I only stepped away twenty minutes ago. Or forty-seven minutes. Or, according to one confused IT message, negative six minutes, asking me to respond to a query I haven't received yet.
The cubicle walls seem higher than this morning. My desk chair has been adjusted to a height I don't remember setting. The family photo beside my monitor now shows my nephew at an age he hasn't reached yet—still recognizably him, but wearing a graduation cap he won't receive for four years.
A new email notification appears: time stamp 3:72 PM.
Subject: Re: Your Time Management Issues
From: dr.temporal@efficientminds.com
Riley,
I've been observing the temporal distortions in your vicinity. What you're experiencing isn't a failure of time management—it's a matter of responding to management. Your executive function differences have created a localized chronological field that reflects your internal relationship with linear progression.
This isn't pathology. It's an adaptation.
Would you be interested in learning to work with these effects rather than against them?
Dr. Elena Vasquez
P.S. Check your watch.
My watch face has gone dark except for a single word pulsing in soft blue: NOW.
Not the time. Just the immediate, eternal present tense that exists between seconds.
I look around with fresh attention. The clocks aren't malfunctioning—they're responding. The conference room clock runs slowly because meetings stretch when I'm present, time dilating to accommodate processing delays. The hallway clock runs fast because I hurry through transitions, anxiety-creating temporal urgency that accelerates seconds.
My computer desynchronizes because I work in hyperfocus bursts that are outside the normal time flow. When I'm deep in code, minutes compress while hours expand into subjective days.
I dial the number from Elena's email. It answers before the first ring completes.
"Riley," a warm voice says. "I was hoping you'd call around this time."
"Dr. Vasquez?"
"Elena. You've been unconsciously training your environment to accommodate your executive function patterns instead of forcing yourself to match arbitrary schedules."
Through my window, people walk across the plaza below, slightly out of sync with their shadows. Some shadows lead by several steps; others lag like temporal echoes.
"Is this happening to other people?"
"More than you think, but usually in smaller ways. Clocks running fast for chronic early arrivers, traffic lights extending for people who need more crossing time. The difference is that most people suppress these effects because they contradict consensus reality. You've stopped masking your natural temporal patterns."
A co-worker passes in slow motion while scrolling her phone at normal speed. The desynchronization creates a brief aurora of displaced seconds around her shoulders.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Learn to navigate consciously instead of accidentally. Time isn't rigid—it's responsive to the shape of consciousness it flows around. Your differences give you access to temporal flexibility most people never discover."
My chair adjusts to a more comfortable position without my having to touch it. Afternoon light takes on a golden quality that usually doesn't appear until later, as if the sun has slowed its descent to match my internal sense of when afternoon should transition to evening.
"The business world runs on artificial scarcity of time," Elena says. "Deadlines, schedules, punctuality—designed to create anxiety that motivates productivity. But when you stop anticipating failure to meet arbitrary demands, time stops feeling scarce."
My monitor shows a clock I don't remember installing: "Time until task completion: Flexible" and "Energy level: Sustainable."
Through the conference room glass, I see Janet and the others cycling through the same discussion points, trapped in a temporal loop.
"They're stuck," I realize.
"Consensus time creates consensus thinking. Linear progression through agenda items doesn't always allow for organic solution development."
I return to the conference room. The door opens before I knock, and Janet looks up with relief.
"Riley, perfect timing. We keep hitting the same sticking point."
The room clock shows 2:30 PM—the original start time. The temporal loop has reset, waiting for a different approach.
"What if we're solving the wrong problem?" I suggest. "Instead of allocating limited resources optimally, what if we examined why they feel limited?"
The conversation flows with unprecedented ease, moving through insights organically rather than being forced through predetermined stages. By the time we resolve, all clocks show 3:15 PM.
Temporal harmony is achieved through working with time instead of against it.
Walking home, traffic lights extend their cycles to accommodate my natural pace. The executive function differences I've spent years apologizing for might be a form of temporal perception that most people have forgotten how to access.
My building's elevator arrives just as I approach, doors revealing my reflection moving slightly ahead of me—a preview of the person I'm becoming as I learn to inhabit time instead of fighting it.
Inside my apartment, every clock shows "NOW." For the first time in years, that feels like exactly when I'm supposed to be.
