Chapter 3 perfect hourglass

This is really the first piece of work I wrote after I won the N award, and it's true.I wrote this over the weekend after I won the award on Wednesday, and not long ago, I was invited to appear on TV, and I don't know why.It should be that I seldom refuse work, and I am not difficult to deal with, so others dare to speak up.In the studio, I always admire the anchor's timing skills every time.In the live broadcast of the program, the voices of staff wearing headset microphones came.How many seconds does it take to end?The host answered while reading the manuscript in his hand.Fifteen seconds is enough.Even if I speak incoherently, the anchor can grasp the timing correctly and end the interview beautifully in the last fifteen seconds of the program.That should be a special skill.The world of television is also wonderful, and there are many subjects that could be written as novels.This female anchor is not described according to a specific anchor as a template.If I did meet someone this beautiful and intimidating, I'd probably be too scared to hug her and ask her to marry me.

Pushing open the frosted glass door, there is a night sea in front of you.The dense lights on the shore seem to form a halo around the dark blue Tokyo Bay that is close to black.On the other side is a looming dotted line of lights. This is the bar on the top floor of the Tianwangzhou Building.There was a woman sitting in front of the bar, with a fair neck and a face with delicate features but a very indifferent expression.A look of surprise flitted across her otherwise expressionless face when she saw me. "Ah, long time no see." I finally got rid of the headache meeting and the long banquet that followed, and came to this bar to take refuge alone, and met her after a year.In the plot of a movie, a story is often unfolded after a very romantic encounter, but I have no story, and I don't have any expectations.

Even so, I walked over to the shiny piano-lacquered bar, and being a good guy is such a hassle. "Yeah, long time no see, I often see you on TV." She is an anchor.The products I planned were very popular before, and I was ordered by the company to accept many interviews.I used to work with her almost a year ago.One time was as a guest on a daytime variety show, and the other time was recording in the development room of the head office.Before the show aired, we were able to confirm some details by e-mail. She is in her early thirties and is a capable and calm woman.Different from young anchors, she will not deliberately stick out her tongue to pretend to be cute through some deliberately arranged process mistakes or forgivable mistakes; she has never had any gossip scandals that can be reported by weekly magazines, she just completes her work down-to-earth Work belongs to the backbone of the younger generation.

"Just now I came here to drink with my friends who entered the TV station at the same time, and now it's just me." She looked absently at the bar.There was no bartender in the bar, only a couple at the table by the window.I sat shallowly on the bar chair next to her so that I could leave at any time.Loose on her slender wrists is an antique Rolex, the rose gold of which has grown a bit somber. "I use it like jewelry. The watch gets eighty-seven seconds faster every week." she said with a serious expression.I paid attention to her watch because I vaguely recalled that she had mentioned in an email earlier that she had an interest in time.

"There's enough preparation here." She slowly shook her head from side to side with the same amplitude, like a metronome tuned to two beats. "For the anchor, it is not enough. The anchor must completely integrate the body into the pulse of time, because controlling time is my most important job." Because I have witnessed her work in the studio, so I can fully identify with this.Even if the content of the news changes or a guest's speech is too long, she can sum it up properly in her own language with a friendly smile and move on to the next unit within a fraction of a second.Because she controls it so naturally, no one has discovered her special skill.She took something out of the purse at her feet, and then put it on the bar with a "click".

It was a glass hourglass, and the black sand seemed to be alive, forming a hill in the hollow waiting below. "If you want to get three minutes right, try this." The way she stared at me sucked me in like quicksand, and I held the still hourglass and said: "Then let me test how accurate your sense of time is." She sat in front of the night and smiled and nodded.I put the hourglass in front of my eyes and covered it with my hand. "At one hundred and eighty seconds, please tell me. If you get the answer right, I will treat you today." Staring at the sand flowing down for three minutes straight is exhausting.In the meantime, she put her hand on the bar, intoxicated, and as the last sand slipped, she said:

"Now." I couldn't believe it. I glanced at the hourglass, and there was no mystery on it. "Okay, I will treat you tonight, but, to prove that you are not just guessing, can you try again." She nodded with a smile, and took out another thing from her purse.This time it is a large horse watch. "This horse watch can receive the correction wave sent by the cesium atomic clock, and it will be corrected to the correct time every day. In Tokyo, it can receive the correction wave from Fukushima. You can test it with the hourglass." She smiled sweetly, an expression that could never be seen on her face when she was on TV.The drunken woman in front of me suddenly made me feel scared, as if someone was stroking my back with a cold hand.There was a whole row of goosebumps on the back.

While operating the hourglass, I pressed the horse watch. As before, she said "now" precisely at that moment, that was the moment when the last black sand passed through the neck of the glass bottle.Without looking at the numbers, I pressed the stop button, and finally moved my eyes to the LCD screen of the horse watch. Exactly one hundred and eighty seconds.Moreover, three zeros are arranged at the position representing a hundredth of a second.I stared at the hourglass and horse watch dumbfounded, and she said: "I went to the factory and spent a whole day picking out this hourglass. I looked at hundreds of them, and this is the only one that is really correct."

Sand collects inside the glass like smoke. "How can you grasp the time so accurately?" She snatched the hourglass from my hand and dangled it in front of me.The black sand undulates like a liquid. "Continuously decompose the flow of time, and the decomposition is finer than the sand enclosed in the glass; it is smaller than the digits of a hundredth of a second. After spending several years and continuing to practice to the limit, time will become Shimmering transparent particles." I know that light has dual characteristics of waves and particles, but I have never heard that time can become particles.I asked:

"So, are you counting each particle one by one?" She nodded with a serious expression. "That's right. Calculate one by one. Once you reach this level, if you want to measure three minutes correctly, it's as easy as telling what day of the week it is." I'm exhausted from work, and I'm terrified of this witchy woman in front of me.I took my wallet out of the inside pocket and was about to leave the bar when she squinted at me. "You still don't understand what I mean. Listen carefully. When time is completely broken down into particles, interesting things will happen. Let me show you."

After finishing speaking, she handed her hand in front of me, slowly turned it up and down, and said in a low voice: "Relax slowly and don't focus your mind. Make your heart and the speed of the sand flow down into one, and at the same time, look into my eyes." As she spoke, she held the hourglass to her forehead, and black sand fell from between her eyes.Between her black eyes, I thought I saw sand falling with a thunderous waterfall.Those are clear and transparent particles, each one has a certain image, and a hoarse voice can be heard from a distance. "watch carefully." I focus my awareness on the particles.Like the particles of dust floating in the air, they turned into laughter like ripe fruits and stood still before my eyes.In the transparent sphere, there are countless images of me and her.The studio where we sat across the table a year ago; after measuring for three minutes, she said "now" mouth shape... However, among the many images, there are many that I have never seen.I put my arms around her shoulders and walked in the night; we greeted the dawn together on the bed; we had a dispute over something, her crying profile; we walked on the sidewalk when going to the wedding registration.Her calm face is always by my side, always measuring the time correctly. My hair gradually turned gray and my body shrunk.She still stares at the particles of time with me. In the bar at night, I sat on a bar chair and almost screamed. "I don't know why it is you. When the particle of time becomes the smallest unit, everything in the past, present and future will slowly be included in it. You and I are destined to experience that kind of life. I am waiting for you. From I've been waiting for you to open that door since years ago." It was horrifying to witness the moment of dying in person.I couldn't continue to watch the particles of time, so I took the perfect hourglass off her forehead, trembling all over, and hugged her thin body tightly.