Time Ages in a Hurry

Our time is running out

The title of Antonio Tabucchi’s book sets the theme.

Time. Passing time. In a hurry. Time becoming old. Fast.

Time flowing. Time jumping. Time flying.

Time measured in many ways.

Ages, years, days, hours, minutes, seconds, fractions, plays.

Perceived time. Lived time.

Infinite time made of finite times.

End of run, end of line, end of the game.

Time that melts into writing, music, photography.

Time. Times after times. Different times.

This is the end, my only friend, the end

A river running wild that will create, An empire for you

He’s been waiting for the turn of the tide

And another one gone, another one bites the dust

Nothing left, nothing left, nothing there, nothing there

By harvest time she knows the score

As time goes by

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older

Chess, Time is Running Out, Muse

Civilization, Empire, Of Monsters and Men

Flamme Rouge, The End, The Doors

Advanced Squad Leader, Back to the Wall, Barclay James Harvest

Ace of Aces, Another One Bites the Dust, Queen

Alhambra, Unthought Known, Pearl Jam

Agricola, Mistress of the Salmon Salt, Blue Öyster Cult

Dixit, As Time Goes By, Frank Sinatra

Photosynthesis, Time, Pink Floyd

Igrok - The Gambler

"There was a tremendous crowd in the gaming-rooms. What an arrogant, greedy crowd it was! I pressed forward towards the middle of the room until I had secured a seat at a croupier's elbow. Then I began to play in timid fashion, venturing only twenty or thirty gulden at a time. Meanwhile, I observed and took notes. It seemed to me that calculation was superfluous, and by no means possessed of the importance which certain other players attached to it, even though they sat with ruled papers in their hands, whereon they set down the coups, calculated the chances, reckoned, staked, and—lost exactly as we more simple mortals did who played without any reckoning at all.

However, I deduced from the scene one conclusion which seemed to me reliable—namely, that in the flow of fortuitous chances there is, if not a system, at all events a sort of order. This, of course, is a very strange thing. For instance, after a dozen middle figures there would always occur a dozen or so outer ones. Suppose the ball stopped twice at a dozen outer figures; it would then pass to a dozen of the first ones, and then, again, to a dozen of the middle ciphers, and fall upon them three or four times, and then revert to a dozen outers; whence, after another couple of rounds, the ball would again pass to the first figures, strike upon them once, and then return thrice to the middle series—continuing thus for an hour and a half, or two hours. One, three, two: one, three, two. It was all very curious. Again, for the whole of a day or a morning the red would alternate with the black, but almost without any order, and from moment to moment, so that scarcely two consecutive rounds would end upon either the one or the other. Yet, next day, or, perhaps, the next evening, the red alone would turn up, and attain a run of over two score, and continue so for quite a length of time—say, for a whole day. Of these circumstances the majority were pointed out to me by Mr. Astley, who stood by the gaming-table the whole morning, yet never once staked in person.

For myself, I lost all that I had on me, and with great speed. To begin with, I staked two hundred gulden on "even," and won. Then I staked the same amount again, and won: and so on some two or three times. At one moment I must have had in my hands—gathered there within a space of five minutes—about 4000 gulden. That, of course, was the proper moment for me to have departed, but there arose in me a strange sensation as of a challenge to Fate—as of a wish to deal her a blow on the cheek, and to put out my tongue at her. Accordingly I set down the largest stake allowed by the rules—namely, 4000 gulden—and lost. Fired by this mishap, I pulled out all the money left to me, staked it all on the same venture, and—again lost! Then I rose from the table, feeling as though I were stupefied."

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Gambler. Translated by C. J. Hogarth. Ebook #2197, 2009, The Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2197/2197-h/2197-h.htm