by Richard Lau
I can’t tell you when it happened for reasons that will soon become obvious. But I can tell you what and why.
The great armies of the world lined up like chess pieces off of the western and eastern shores of a small island in the Arctic Ocean. The island itself was a harmless wildlife sanctuary administered by the country of Russia. However, the isolated isle also had the misfortune of sitting at 179 degrees longitude and straddling the International Date Line (IDL).
The island’s Russian name of “Wrangel” seemed oddly appropriate as powerful nations and their less-powerful but no less determined allies tried to “wrangle” control of the IDL from their perceived opponents.
With travel circumnavigating the globe, it had long been accepted that crossing the IDL in an eastbound direction decreased the calendar date by one day; crossing the IDL westward advanced the date by the same amount.
Most of the world’s population believed, if giving the matter any more thought than mere acceptance, that the IDL was defined and protected by international agreement or legally binding treaty. Quite to the contrary, the demarcation largely existed through mutual goodwill, non-imposed cooperation, and loose agreement.
Nations on both sides of the line and even those straddling it had historically shifted a day forward or back depending on purely political, economic, and religious whims. And some, as a matter of mere convenience or contemporary preference, had even switched back.
The result was that the IDL actually zigzagged rather than following strictly and straightly along the 180th meridian. It might be better to think of the IDL as something fluid rather than a solid, inviolate line, more as a balloon reacting to the tug of an impatient child or swayed by a current wind of favor.
So, it was neither new nor novel when the United States proclaimed itself the only remaining Super Power and suggested reversing the current measuring units of the IDL.
The official patriotic notice declared “As the United States of America is the most advanced nation in the world, it makes no sense for it to always be a day behind the other countries. We create the future, so we should be in the future. It’s as simple as that.”
China, who was regaining prominence on the global stage disagreed. “This is yet another example of American imperialism and aggression. Why disrupt the schedules and clocks of the world just to satisfy the selfish ego of one nation with a reputation of bullying and going rogue?”
As a sanction and a buffer, China proposed thickening the IDL by 30 degrees on the US side of the dateline, putting said country two hours further back into the past. By the current IDL standard, every 15 degrees of longitude on either side of the IDL resulted in an adjustment of one hour, an addition or subtraction depending upon the direction travelled.
Russia agreed with China, as long as one minute was added to each country for every degree of latitude north of the equator. China, which lay significantly above the equator, appreciated the additional amount of time but disliked the greater gain the plan provided to its more northern neighbor.
Tensions grew as more and more countries got involved in defining their own time zones, especially those in the Southern hemisphere led by Australia and Ecuador, who felt offended at being left out of the Russian plan. Others, with economic, financial, and historical ties to the U.S. were torn between retaining favor by siding with the proposed IDL reversal and struggling with the temporal temptation of setting their own clocks to the beats of their own independent wants and needs.
Even inside the United States, divisions arose. Arizona, which never accepted Daylight Saving Time, gleefully changed its clocks by two hours in an effort to spend even more daylight. California, its more progressive neighbor to the west, adjusted its own clocks by three hours to counteract Arizona’s “overspending.” The federal government was asked to resolve the conflict, but Congress was on its newly minted holiday “New New Year’s Day,” which occurred anytime politics got too contentious. New New Year’s Day happened to fall on an almost daily basis, much to the delight of the fireworks industry.
The Protestant versus Catholic rivalry was reignited as England returned to the Julian calendar and took back the eleven days it had lost. The rousing slogan of “God Save the King and the Eleven!” was chanted throughout the British kingdom. In response, Pope Gregory XIX considered an entirely new calendar with Saturdays being replaced with an early start to Sunday to allow more time for masses and services. Orthodox Jews weren’t happy about the Papal proposal and immediately ended their Decembers with a seven-day extension of the 24th, in spite of the confusion about what to do with the menorah candles during some years.
Many religious followers could not help but see the temporal turbulence as a similar situation to the Tower of Babel. As the story went, a long time ago a united human race spoke a single language and had the hubris to overstep its bounds by building a tower so tall that it touched the Heavens. As punishment, the Lord sowed confusion by giving populations different languages and scattering them across the world. In trying to bend and corrupt Time to their own selfish uses, humankind had reaped the Calendar of Babel.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations pleaded for a peaceful and orderly solution that was fair to all humanity. His request was immediately dismissed by invested critics who pointed out that the unfortunate man was born on February 29, and in spite of his esteemed position, one who possessed a mere sixteen birthdays had no standing or enough experience to tell mature nations what to do.
The UN then issued a heartfelt plea to Italy, who at the time, appeared to be the most influential nation to remain neutral. However, it was soon revealed that the reason for Italy’s silence was not neutrality, but a secret and severe back-dating return to the 15th century, to re-celebrate the glory days of its Rinascimento.
As the telephone, much less the Internet, hadn’t been invented yet, all calls and e-mails remained unanswered. All communication was handled through handwritten correspondence, but this method was slow in delivery and deciphering, for the only individuals who still retained the skill of cursive were monks and doctors. To make matters worse, the Italians honored one of the greatest thinkers of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, by focusing on writing backwards, which only led to more confusion and difficulty in translation.
With each locality defining its own measurement of time within their borders, the world economy quickly collapsed. How could anyone enact any financial transactions when one or both parties were either away for a newly defined weekend, enjoying a good extended night’s rest, or celebrating a holiday?
No one could really say how long the chaos reigned once the tick-tock genie had been released from Pandora’s bottle. For some countries, it was only a matter of seconds. For others, centuries had passed. Scientists could only say that the Doomsday Clock had advanced closer to midnight, but whose midnight remained the big question.
In Belgium, where the government had redefined “quarterly” to mean “twice weekly,” the editorial team of a speculative philosophy journal ironically found themselves without any time at all. Looking at their insurmountable mountain of submissions, they yelled, “Enough is enough!” The rest of the world agreed.
The problem was not what to do but how to do it. By now, the world’s citizens had tired of the resulting and continuous confusion and frustration. Countries were willing to sacrifice their special time delineations for peace of mind and stability among people and nations. They agreed that the prior IDL guidelines were ideal, but how to return to them without any particular nation losing face for its embarrassing behavior?
Everyone was going in circles, and yet, perhaps, that was the solution.
It was revealed that a new space station, built and launched by a technology billionaire, was still running on the old calendar and showed that a little more than 30 days had passed under the new time regime. All of the nations informally agreed to sync with the time and date of the space station clock under the old IDL standard. But how to erase the recent period of blunders?
Travelling at about five miles per second, the station orbited the Earth sixteen times in a twenty-four-hour period. The astronauts aboard the station changed its trajectory to cross over the still unmodified IDL in an eastward direction. In 48 hours, they had successfully set the calendar back 32 days, to the time before the United States had originally issued its IDL proclamation.
But bad ideas die hard, and soon the idea of manipulating the IDL and its time zones came up again. However, this time better, wiser, and more experienced heads prevailed. They decided to table the issue until the next day. And so on. And so on.
~
Bio:
Richard Lau is an award-winning writer who is published in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, as well as in the high-tech industry and online.
Philosophy Note:
n these divisive times of war and political turmoil, it seems that humankind cannot agree on anything–except a standardized measurement of time. But what if that fell away as well?
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