Leap Year Time
It’s Leap Day, so welcome to the obligatory post acknowledging the quirk of our not-quite-exact calendar. Here we are on the 60th or 366th day of the year, depending on how you decide to count. Other than the way we name and place it, there’s nothing all that special about it. Time, after all, is made up, at least in the clock and calendar sense.
So why am I talking about this on my cute little horror blog?
I’m sure most are familiar with the equation of Comedy = Tragedy + Time. If we take that equation to be true, then Time is a function of story. And if Time is a function of story, then it must fit somewhere in an equation for Horror.
This is where I’m supposed to reveal my new! and unique! theory of horror and time. Alas, I don’t have a simple one that encompasses the entire genre. I could make the case that Horror = Time - Time, or Horror = Time - Logic. Or maybe it’s Dread + Time. Or Anticipation +/- Time. It could be any of those. All of those. None of those.
What’s the scariest episode of Dr. Who? I would say it’s Blink from Series 3. That’s the episode that introduced us to the Fallen Angels, some of the most disquieting villains The Doctor has ever encountered. I don’t think it’s a mistake that these villains don’t actually kill their prey, merely steal their present and future from them by sending them back in time.
They steal time, but not the time you already had. The time you have right now, and all the right nows you will ever have.
Horror is about the present moment. It’s about what is happening right here and right now. We’re not terrified of the things that already happened in the story. And the things that will come are too distant to be relevant. That gut twisting feeling is all about what is happening. What will happen, at most, in the next moment. Anything further out from that is irrelevant, because it’s what happens now that determines what will happen next.
If you die now, it doesn’t matter what happens 40, 20, or 2 pages later. If the thing that violates reality happens, then what you thought could happen in just as many pages is also superfluous. That vision of reality no longer exists.
So what does this have to do with Leap Day?
Nothing and everything. This is a reality shifting day. We’ve all agreed to suspend the normalcy of March 1 following February 28. There is an expansion of time and with it, something different might happen. I’m honestly surprised there’s not more horror focused on the weirdness of this day.
Maybe that’ll change by the time another one rolls around.