Clockwatching

I was driving through the desert; my gas tank was reading as empty and the signs told me that the next town was twelve miles away. I made it, but what a heart-thumping ten minutes that was, every second of it dilated and intense.

Later in the very same journey, I suddenly became aware that I had traveled 250 miles without really noticing it. Several hours had passed in a blink, barely registered by me.

This lends credence to my older son's theory that clocks do something, mechanically and accurately and usefully measure something - but that it has nothing to do with time.