Ben WillisOnce upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it.
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Ben WillisThe bad news is that time flies. The good news... is that you're the pilot.
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Ben WillisShe caught the wrong second of a two-second story.
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Ben WillisCrush. It's funny how the same word for the feeling of *attraction* can be used for the feeling of disappointment.
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Ben WillisI read once about a woman whose secret fantasy was to have an affair with an artist. She thought he would really see her. He would see every curve, every line, every indentation and love them because they were part of the beauty that made her unique.
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Ben WillisI wanted to freeze time. I wanted to savor that moment, to live in that moment for a week. But I couldn't stop it, only slow it. And before I knew it, she was gone. After the door closed I felt like the last person on Earth.
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Ben WillisYou can speed it up. You can slow it down. You can even freeze a moment, but you can't rewind time. You can't undo what is done. I thought about what she had seen. I thought about what she hadn't seen. I thought about how I could explain, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew nothing I could say would make her anger go away. How long could I just wait here, delaying the inevitable?
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Ben WillisYou see, I've always wanted to be a painter, and like many artists before me, the female form has always been a great source of inspiration. I've always been in awe of the power they unknowingly possess.
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Ben WillisThis is the haunting period. The time when the demons of regret come for you.
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Ben WillisI've always wanted to be a painter, maybe have my work hung in a gallery one day.
Sharon PinteyI think it might have something to do with their ability to see beauty in everything.
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Ben WillisI could feel a faint shift in a faraway place. A current of unknown consequences was on its way, moving towards me like an unstoppable wave of fate.
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Ben WillisBeing Swedish, the walk from the bathroom to her room didn't need to be a modest one.
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Ben WillisAre you and Matt seeing each other?
Sharon PinteyNo. We went to the cinema the other night, but just as friends.
Ben WillisI think it was the best sex he's never had.
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[first lines]
Ben WillisIt take approximately 500 lbs to crush a human skull. But the human emotion is a much more delicate thing. Take Suzy, my first real girl friend. My first real break-up, happening right in front of me. I never thought it was going to be similar to a car crash. I've slammed the breaks, and I'm skidding toward an emotional impact. So, is this all my fault? Me, Ben Willis. It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like this. The two and a half years we spent together. The promises we made. The holidays we took with her parents. The lamp we bought at IKEA together.
Ben WillisIt was my final year at art college. And in the weeks that followed the break-up, I tried to figure out what went wrong. Why did we break-up? It's funny, but when I think back now, the reasons seem so small. One day she's with me and she's saying I love you, and the next week she's with someone else, probably saying the same thing. So did she really love me? What is love, anyway? And is it really that fleeting?
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Ben WillisI had just become immune to sleep. I suddenly found I had 8 extra hours. My life had been extended by a third. I wanted time to pass quickly but instead I was forced to witness the passing of every second of every hour. I wanted the hurt I felt to go away but in some cruel trick of events I now had even more time on my hands.
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Ben WillisFor me, this fascination with beauty started at a very young age. I was 6 or 7 and my mom and dad had taken on a foreign student. She was in her late teens and was studying English at a nearby school. Being Swedish, the walk from the shower to her room didn't need to be a modest one. It was at that moment that something very profound came to me. I was exposed to the female form in a way I had never experienced. I felt fascination and wonder at the beauty of her nakedness and I wanted to freeze the world so that I could live in that moment for a week. I have never had a feeling of such completeness. To this day I still think it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
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Ben WillisThere is an art to dealing with the boredom of an 8-hour shift. An art to putting your mind somewhere else while the seconds slowly tick away. I found that all the people working here had perfected their own individual art. Take Sharon Pintey. Sharon knows rule #1, the clock is the enemy. The basic rule is this: the more you look at the clock, the slower the time goes. It will uncover the hiding place of your mind, and torture it with every second. This is the basic art in dealing with the trade of your time.
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Sean HigginsTwo halves, please.
The BarmanWhat was the other one?
Sean HigginsTwo halves.
The BarmanOh, yeah.
Sean HigginsI just found the world's stupidest barman.
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Ben WillisYou can't rely on other people to make you happy.
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Ben WillisWithin this frozen world I'm able to walk freely and unnoticed. Nobody would even know that time has stopped. And when it started back up again, the invisible join would be seamless except for a slight shudder. Not unlike the feeling of somebody walking over your grave.
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Ben WillisMy first year at art college was boring to say the least, but it helped to appreciate the fundamentals of still life.
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Sean HigginsShe got small hands.
Ben WillisWhat's that got to do with anything?
Sean HigginsMakes your Willy look big.
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Ben WillisA Natalie was a term that Sean had coined for any sexual encounter that happened with a girl you weren't in a relationship with.
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Ben WillisIt was these shampoo bottles that sent them on their quest. Barry and Matt knew what they looked like. And they knew that the women in the supermarket knew what they looked like. Their theory was that even though it was a sex toy masquerading as a bottle of shampoo, women would like to try it as a sex toy but were embarrassed to buy it because they knew what it looked like. The decision to buy it would be an easier one if they were already at the checkout. If they didn't object, then Barry and Matt knew that they'd helped a bottle find a happy home.