It came as an epiphany.
The bank's time and temperature wasn't wrong.
It was actually telling me what the temperature was going to be
tomorrow at 6:17 p.m.
It was a window into the future.
Perfectly useless for most aspects of life,
except maybe planning a picnic,
but nevertheless,
a chance to see what had not yet happened,
what was going to happen
28 hours and 16 minutes from now,
any now.

So instead of going to work one day,
I just sat in the bank's lot
and watched as it cooled off tomorrow evening,
down to an overnight low of 63,
before it started to warm up again at sunrise,
day after tomorrow.

It was only after I'd been there for over a day
that I noticed the parking lot was full of other cars
with their occupants doing nothing else
than watching that digital readout.
One guy here,
two guys there,
even entire families
sitting in rapture
over what tomorrow's weather was going to be.

I think it was finally hunger
that made me abandon my spot,
which was quickly filled by one of the cars
circling the lot,
hoping for someplace to land.

At times I'm tempted to go back,
just to see,
just to know.
But that intersection has become so congested
that it would add a full thirty minutes onto my commute,
and I don't want to leave any earlier,
and I can't afford to be late.

May 2004