What is a Minute? By Andrew Broadley | Illustration by Yi Jong In February of this year I was working abroad and entering the final few months of my work contract. I had no plans to renew and was looking at a hefty contract completion bonus, a visa with time to spare on the end, and no real rush to start the next project. I left tabs open on my browser, simple listicles, detailing best sites to see and places to eat around the Korean peninsula, as well as across Japan, Taiwan, and even Melbourne. I had no tickets booked because I didn’t feel the need. How long I would spend in each place was undecided, my arrival back in New Zealand was undetermined. I looked at 2020 as being a vast space of time; with no definitive punctuation it felt subjective and malleable. Free for me to move about and to manipulate to my own desire. Turns out, it was more of a black hole. These tabs are long gone. Replaced now with an email that gives me 2 months of Skillshare free that I am yet to claim, The New Yorker open and unread, an unhealthy dose of some online shopping and YouTube’s premium lofi channel, ChilledCow, permanently on. February is August and 24-years-old is now 25-years-old and that aforementioned August is now October. I was right in my thinking, time is malleable. It’s just, I’m not the only one who gets to squeeze, stretch and bend it. COVID -19 has taken to time in a manner that has been less Patrick Swayze in ‘Ghost’ and more ‘satisfying YouTube video of a hydraulic press squashing shit’. It hasn’t accelerated or decelerated; it's wiped it out altogether. There has been no conductor and no delicate brushwork Italian above the first bar of the year: March Tempo Allegretto Tempo Allegro Tempo Allegrissimo
15
