He stopped believing in time. It served no purpose for him, other than allowing others to chastise him for being late. He knew he operated under the laws of gravity, it was a burden he accepted, if begrudgingly. He understood his limitations, tested their margins, but allowed that he had finite power over them. But time was something different. Intangible, evanescent, yet omnipresent. It weighed on him, held him in its grasp. But why life should be parsed and and meted out by a third rate star and planets orbiting it was beyond him. The moment he stopped believing in time, the moment he denied its very existence, the clock in the town square stopped speaking to him, and the silence was welcomed. There was no history, no yesterday impinging on now, no tomorrow distracting him. Finally, he could breathe freely. Suddenly certain he was immortal, and life began to deeply matter.