Time Enough
"Time Enough" (alternate title: "Enough Time") is a science fiction short story written by Damon Knight. It first appeared in the July 1960 issue of Amazing magazine and has since been reprinted twice, in Far Out (1961) and The Best of Damon Knight (1976).
Synopsis
A psychiatrist of the future (1978) treats a young man, using a machine that causes him to relive an embarrassing incident from his childhood. The psychiatrist describes the treatment as follows:
"The past can be altered. The scholar can take his exam over again, the lover can propose once more, the words that were thought of too late can be spoken...It's like a game of cards. If you don't like the hand that is dealt to you, you can take another, and after that, another..."
At the end of the story, having failed once again to resolve the childhood incident in a satisfactory way, the client leaves, with the words, "There's always tomorrow, isn't there?"
Background
About this story, Knight wrote
During an unproductive session at the typewriter in 1959, I said the hell with it and decided to go and lie down. While horizontal, with the dorsal muscles relaxed, I got the idea for "Time Enough," thus establishing a principle that I have followed successfully ever since: when you're not writing, get away from the typewriter.
Podcasts:
-
by Mesh
Time Enough
by: MeshMore and more, our ordinary perception has been speeded up
One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two
One, two, one, two, one (one) two (two) one (one) two (two)
You didn't listen at the wall
And you didn't listen to the way things fall
And you didn't want to take the risk
But you didn't dream of ending up like this
So give it up
You couldn't face them on your own
And you couldn't make it past the final zone
You wouldn't take a hand or talk with me
You wouldn't take my sympathy
So you lost it all
Yes, you lost it all
There I was, driving along thinking how empty, lonesome, and bland my life had become
You wouldn't take my aching hands
And you wouldn't talk about the things we planned
The only one to hold you up was me
But all you do was shut your eyes and count to three
One two, one two, one two three
Is this not living life to its fullest?
You just don't think there's
Time enough to say enough to be enough to earn enough to
Hate enough to learn enough to do enough for me
You always played it by the rules
Suffering in silence with the other fools
The only one to stay with you was me
Counting out the years like it's A B C
A, B, A B C
You couldn't face 'em on your own
And you couldn't make it past the final zone
You wouldn't take a hand or talk with me
You wouldn't take my sympathy
So you lost it all
Yes, you lost it all
You just don't think there's
Time enough to say enough to be enough to earn enough to
Hate enough to learn enough to do enough for me
(You just don't think there's)
Time enough to say enough to be enough to earn enough to
(You just don't think there's time)
Hate enough to learn enough to do enough for me
(You just don't think there's time)
Time enough to say enough to be enough to earn enough to
(You just don't think there's time)