I was on a plane en route to perform my Umrah last year when I had one of the most profound experiences in my life.
I knew I was supposed to do some last-minute reading on the things I needed to know and do and say when I reached my destination; to prep up for my obligations as a Muslim in one of The holiest sites on earth, but... [*excuse erased*]
Yes, I have read through the small, thick spiralled Umrah guidebook given to me by the week before tourgroup - from cover to cover countless times, in fact - but I feel guilty if I put it down or kept it in my bag. After much contemplation I decided to wear the string attached to the book around my neck and just let it hang there, resting against my chest, just in case I felt like reading it again later.
I turned to my right talk to Mom, but she had already dozed off. In fact, I was one of the few who wasn't already blissfully in dream land. I wish I could join them, but I couldn't, for some reason.
After checking my watch for the nth time, I began to hear some kids asking the adults around them "Lambat lagi ke?" ("Are we there yet?") like a broken record.
I yawned as my eyes travelled around the cabin, trying to find something or someone to look at, and they finally landed on the entertainment screen at the back of the headrest in front of me. When I saw my reflection in the dark, imageless screen, I subconsciously held onto the umrah guidebook hanging from my neck.
"Maybe just for a while."
... is what I thought to myself.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I switched on the entertainment set. Maybe I just wanted something to do that didn't involve reading while waiting for the stewards and stewardesses to give us our refreshments. That's what I kept telling myself as I was pressing the buttons, hoping to land of something worthwhile.
The music selection wasn't very interesting (I'm not much of a fan of Middle Eastern music), so I browsed through the other things offered. As I scrolled down the movies selection, a guy with a familiar face caught my eye.
The guy was Justin Timberlake, and the movie poster had a white bolded 'IN TIME' written right at the top of the poster. I couldn't help but laugh at how corny the title was.
I mean, seriously.
The movie had already started playing for a few minutes, but I watched it anyway. Out of curiosity, and partly because, well, it's Justin, one of my ultimate celeb crushes as I was growing up.
... and the smile I had plastered on my face disappeared as soon as I started watching the movie.
The story is set in a world where 'time is money'. Literally. Every business transaction uses not bills or notes or even magnetised plastic cards, but time. Time is the mode of currency, no matter where you are in the world.
What does this mean? It means that you pay for anything and everything with the time you have left in your body. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years in your life.
In such a world, those who are rich are those with a long life. They are, in theory, immortal.
Those who are poor are those who have little time left in or for themselves.
Those who are bankrupt are, well, dead.
And all that is well and good and profound and everything, but that's not what the reason why the movie affected me. What affected me throughout the movie was that I couldn't help but think of surah al-Asr.
“By Time! Indeed Man is in Loss. Except those who have faith and do good works,
and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to patience.” (Q.103:1-3)
When the credits started rolling in I realised that my eyes were wet. I kept trying to dry them with the sleeves of my abaya, but they continued to well up again. It just wouldn't stop.
After I took off my headset, I started to contemplate on a lot of things.
In no time, I was drowning in my thoughts, just as my eyes were drowning in my tears.
I thought about my past. My present. My future.
I began to wonder about my career path, about what I had for dinner the last night, about why of all the movies in the world, that was the one I had watched.
I began to think of all those years I wasted idolising a celebrity and memorising his shoe size, favourite pizza topping and his biggest pet peeve. (I'm relieved to say that I've completely forgotten all three -- I have better things to do with my memory).
I began to think of how right before Mom and I left for the airport with this morning, we ended up arguing - godknowswhy, over godknowswhat.
I began to think of what is going to happen to me when the people and things I have around me are no longer there.
What have I been doing all my life? What am I doing right now? What will I do when it all ends?
Justin had always had an 'effect' on me back when I was 13 - his golden curls and cheeky grins always made my heart skip a beat, but now, the only effect he left on me from the movie wasn't his boyish charms.
It was all about the message he was trying to convey, the idea that the story is trying to unfold.
The movie, in a way, carries a truth that many of us tend to forget, or perhaps one that many of us choose to ignore: "We talk of killing time, while time slowly kills us".