My father was a shaman. He told me that time doesn't exist. He

Host: The desert air shimmered with heat, every grain of sand glowing like a suspended ember under the afternoon sun. The horizon was endless—a quiet, golden infinity. An old pickup truck sat idling beside a weathered roadside diner, its metal sighing in the warmth. Inside, the world felt paused: no music, no clocks, just the hiss of the ceiling fan slicing through time like an invisible blade.

At a corner booth, Jack stirred the melting ice in his glass of lemonade, the condensation forming slow trails down the glass. Across from him, Jeeny rested her chin on her hand, her eyes distant, as if watching something unfold far beyond the diner walls.

Jeeny: “You know what Alessandro Michele once said? ‘My father was a shaman. He told me that time doesn’t exist. He didn’t use a clock. He didn’t know when my birthday was.’”

Jack: half-smiling, dryly “So the man was either enlightened… or really bad with dates.”

Jeeny: “Maybe both.”

Host: A faint wind rattled the window blinds, scattering patterns of light across the cracked linoleum. Somewhere outside, a dog barked once, then silence returned—a silence so thick it felt like the air itself had forgotten to move.

Jack: “Time doesn’t exist. I’ve heard that line a hundred times. Always from someone who’s never been late for rent.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “You’re thinking too literally again, Jack. He meant it the way shamans mean everything—symbolically. That time isn’t a ruler we live by, but a rhythm we live within.”

Jack: “Sounds poetic. But in reality, if you don’t keep time, the world leaves you behind.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe you finally catch up to yourself.”

Host: Her words hung in the dusty air, vibrating like a low note from an unseen instrument. Jack leaned back in his seat, his grey eyes narrowing toward the window, watching the heat waves ripple above the asphalt.

Jack: “So what—you think time’s an illusion? Tell that to a man watching his child grow, or to someone counting the hours in a hospital waiting room.”

Jeeny: “But that’s not time, Jack—that’s memory and anticipation. Time itself doesn’t move. We do.”

Host: The fan creaked above them, turning slowly, as if proving her point. Every rotation was the same, and yet somehow new.

Jeeny: “Think about it. Before clocks, people lived by seasons, by the moon, by hunger, by sleep. They didn’t measure their lives—they felt them.”

Jack: “And they died at thirty.”

Jeeny: “But maybe they lived deeper. They weren’t racing against invisible numbers.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He tapped his finger on the table, each tap steady—an unconscious imitation of a ticking clock.

Jack: “You’re romanticizing chaos. Time gives structure. Without it, there’s no progress, no civilization. Every invention, every achievement depends on measurement.”

Jeeny: “And yet the greatest moments in life—the ones that change you—always happen outside of it. Falling in love, watching the sun rise, holding someone who’s about to die. In those moments, time stops. It’s only later we try to count it.”

Host: Her voice softened, but her eyes blazed with quiet conviction. Jack turned his gaze away, staring instead at the desert through the window, vast and timeless.

Jack: “You sound like you want to live in eternity.”

Jeeny: “No. I just don’t want to live like a slave to the seconds.”

Host: The waitress, old and slow-moving, poured them more water. She didn’t glance at the clock on the wall—because there wasn’t one. Just a faded calendar, years out of date, pinned crookedly beside the counter.

Jack: “You ever notice that the people who say ‘time doesn’t exist’ are always the ones with enough of it?”

Jeeny: “And the ones who say it’s everything are usually the ones afraid they’re running out.”

Host: The desert wind pushed against the diner windows, humming like a living thing. Outside, the sun began its long descent, spilling molten orange light across the sand.

Jack: after a long pause “My father was obsessed with clocks. He had them in every room. He said if you could control time, you could control your life. He died looking at one.”

Jeeny: gently “Maybe he died looking at the wrong thing.”

Host: Jack’s hand tightened around his glass. The ice had melted completely. The faint lemon scent lingered between them.

Jack: “Your shaman father might’ve found peace in timelessness. But mine found meaning in hours, in the discipline of work, in the structure of days. Maybe time’s not the enemy—it’s the proof we exist at all.”

Jeeny: “Or the proof we’re afraid to stop existing.”

Host: The light grew softer, bending through the windows until it turned the air to gold. Dust motes floated like tiny suns in orbit.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how children have no sense of time? They live completely in the moment. Five minutes or five hours—it’s all the same to them. And then we teach them the clock, and the moment dies.”

Jack: “That’s not death, Jeeny. That’s growing up.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s forgetting.”

Host: The diner door creaked open as a gust of wind swept through, carrying with it the smell of sand and gasoline. Jack glanced up, but no one entered. For a brief second, the world seemed suspended—no movement, no sound, just the hum of the fan and the whisper of the desert.

Jack: “You really believe time doesn’t exist?”

Jeeny: “Not in the way we think it does. I think time is just a mirror. It reflects what we give it.”

Jack: “So if I waste it?”

Jeeny: “Then you’re just staring at yourself wasting.”

Host: Jack let out a low, thoughtful laugh. He leaned forward, elbows on the table.

Jack: “You know, there’s something terrifying about what you’re saying. If time doesn’t exist, then everything—pain, joy, regret—it’s all simultaneous. We never escape anything.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe we never lose anything either.”

Host: A long silence fell. Outside, the sun dipped lower, staining the horizon crimson. The air shimmered, and the desert began to cool, each grain of sand exhaling its stored heat.

Jack: “You make it sound beautiful.”

Jeeny: “It is. That’s what Michele’s father understood. Without time, there’s no before or after. No beginning, no end. Just presence.”

Jack: “Presence…” he whispered, almost to himself. “That’s something I haven’t felt in a while.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “That’s because you’ve been too busy counting moments instead of living them.”

Host: The camera would linger on them now—the fading sunlight brushing their faces, the slow rhythm of the fan, the unmoving clockless wall.

Jack: after a long pause “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back here. This place feels… outside of it all.”

Jeeny: “Because here, time doesn’t tick—it breathes.”

Host: The light dimmed to a tender amber, stretching across their faces like a final stroke of gold on an old canvas.

Jack exhaled, slow and deliberate, as if letting go of something heavy he’d carried for years.

Jack: “So maybe time doesn’t exist after all—just our need to believe it does.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And when that need fades, we stop fearing what we can’t measure.”

Host: Outside, the sun slipped beneath the horizon, leaving only the pale afterglow. Inside the diner, everything was still—timeless.

The clockless walls, the soft hum of the fan, the two souls sitting in quiet understanding.

In that suspended moment, no past or future remained—
only a presence vast and eternal,
where even the smallest heartbeat
felt infinite.