OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY APOLOGY TO TIME

Event Title: “Tick Tock, We’re Sorry: A Reckoning with Chrononormativity”

Location: The Amphitheatre of Decelerated Reflection (formerly “The Quad”)

Occasion: Launch of the “Decolonising Time Taskforce (DTT)”

Dress Code: Flowy. Unhurried.

Trigger Warning: Linear progression

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PRESIDING OFFICER: Chancellor Sybilline Arc (they/she), wearing a ceremonial robe made from dismantled wall calendars

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CHANCELLOR SYBILLINE (they/she):

We gather here today at no particular hour to apologise to Time—not merely the concept, but the being, the presence, the wounded ancestor we betrayed.

For centuries, our institution imposed structure, order, punctuality upon Time—splitting it, dissecting it, arranging it into semesters and exam timetables.

We turned Time into a spreadsheet.

We mounted it on classroom walls and made it tick.

We made students ask: “Do I have enough of it?”

We turned eternity into a PowerPoint slide.

(Audience murmurs. A tear rolls down a sundial.)

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APOLOGY STATEMENT (READ ALOUD BY STUDENTS IN TEMPORAL SOLIDARITY)

GROUP CHANT (softly, rhythmically):

Time, we do not own you.

We reject the tyranny of minutes.

We release you from our syllabi.

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SLIDE APPEARS: “TIMELINES ARE VIOLENCE”

Time Practice	Decolonised Alternative
Lecture Schedule	Spontaneous Knowingspace
Assignment Deadline	Energetic Completion Window
Alarm Clocks	Consent-Based Awakening Ritual
Academic Year	Knowledge Season (subject to planetary vibes)
12-Hour Time Format	Sacred Circle of Becoming

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GUEST LECTURE: PROFESSOR ELIAS MIST (he/they), Temporal Relativist and Horology Abolitionist

PROF. MIST:

Let us remember: The clock tower is not neutral. It is a phallic monument to empire. Every tick is a micro-oppression. Every exam period, a ritual of panic disguised as preparation.

Did the sun ask to be divided into "hours"?

Did your heartbeat consent to iCalendar?

No. Time flowed, and we fenced it.

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CEREMONIAL DISMANTLING OF A CLOCK

A large institutional wall clock is carried in, weeping softly. Students surround it with singing bowls, chamomile incense, and laminated spiral diagrams.

ASHLEIGH (she/her) (to the clock)

You did your best, sweet prisoner.

MORGAN (xe/xem) (gently unplugs it)

Be free now. Drift.

JORDAN (he/they) (smashes it with a biodegradable mallet)

This is for Daylight Savings.

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NEW TEMPORAL POLICIES ANNOUNCED:

• "Time-Neutral Classrooms" where lectures start when “the group feels ready.”

• “Assignment Dreams” replace due dates—you submit only once the work has appeared to you in a vision or strong feeling.

• Students are granted Temporal Autonomy Passes allowing them to move forward or backward in the course at will, “as the moon allows.”

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CLOSING RITUAL: APOLOGY OFFERED DIRECTLY TO TIME (IN SPOKEN WORD)

Oh Time, you spiral of maybe,

we are sorry we caged you in grids and bells,

sorry we made the future a checkbox

and the present a blur.

Come back. Not as servant, but as jazz.