Time Enough at Last

There's an old Twilight Zone episode. It's about a man who loves to read. His shrew of a wife ruins his books out of spite and his boss reprimands him for reading during his work time as a teller in a bank. On his lunch hour, he sneaks downstairs to the vault to read. One day, there is a nuclear explosion. He emerges from the vault to discover he is the only living thing around. In his travels, he discovers the public library, where he gathers and sorts pile after pile of books. But as he reaches to pick up one that has fallen, his glasses slip off his nose and break. He is blind without his glasses. The final shot is of the man weeping in frustration because he had "time enough at last."

In our house, we both love and hate this episode. As avid readers, we can image the joy of endless time to read, and the desperation of not being able to do so.

Life is so fragile. You go along, thinking you'll wander the earth forever, the first person ever to be immortal. You don't want to think about dying. So you build this illusion in your mind of endless tomorrows. You pile up your books, and you tell yourself you'll read them tomorrow, when you have time. But will you have time, or will it run out on you?

So, here we are at carpe diem. Today is a day to be seized. Take a book from the stack, open it up, and dive in.Who knows what lies languishing, waiting to be discovered?