What Can Happen in a Second

One of my best friends got me a book of writing prompts.  642 Things to Write About has already given me a lot and today is only the first day I've used it.  It's exactly what I need though.  A little background so you understand why.  I went to an awesome high school called simply, The Arts High.  My art area was Literary (duh!).  For my Junior and Senior years the amazing Shannon led the group of Lit kids through prompts.  We'd write for about 15 minutes at a time and then would take some of what we wrote and write again.  We did much more than that, but that was part of each day.  We'd get a new prompt and then have to write, keeping our pens and pencils moving the whole time while she gently encouraged us.  I've missed that since I graduated in 1996.  But today I've felt like it was back again, all with a book.  It's like having a Shannon in a book. I took the first prompt "What can happen in a second" and wrote the following piece.  Then I took one of the ideas from those 15 minutes of writing and wrote another piece.  I'm inviting you to pick an idea from this and tell me what to write.  I'll write about it for 15 minutes and post it here.  This is all un-edited and just stream of consciousness writing.

"What can happen in a second"
A lot can happen in a second.  Your world can change: for good or evil/bad.  You can die.  You can discover a world famous something or other, or even something not so famous but that leads to other things.  In "Hello Dolly" they say it only takes a moment to fall in love.  But that's less than a second so I guess more than one thing can happen in a second.  You can fall in love and then out of it or then realize it.  In a second you can blow burning melted butter all over your kitchen (yeah, that was a great one Hr).  In a second you can almost get into an accident and then realize how precious life is.  Or you can get into an accident and others can realize how precious your life was.  In a second you can realize that most of your writing is about horrid depressing things and wonder why that is and why you have such a hard time writing anything light hearted and witty.  But that all takes a bit more than a second.  I wonder, if you were able to create some sci-fi tech device to record each and every second of your day or life and see what happened, or what you thought and did in each second, if it would change either your thinking or actions?  Perhaps you'd realize that you spend too much time sighing or reading on the toilet?  Would you catch yourself doing either and stop?  Or if you thought you thought one way but you realized by going back over your seconds that other thoughts or other attitudes were more prevalent would it change your attitude?  A lot can happen in a second but so can not much.  It takes a lot of time to create and formulate thoughts and actions. While you may think the synopsis of your brain are instantaneous how long does it actually take you to form the idea, the thought and get your hand and pen to respond the way you want?  In a second I can "read" all that I write as I write it. But at what point did I first think it or come up with it or decide to actually write it and put it on paper and not the other thought I had?  Like the sound and feel of my charm bracelet dragging on the paper or hitting the edge of the desk and how it's the house charm Adam got me for my 35th birthday.  And how it means SO much to me because he really thought about it and it is a charm, which I've always wanted a charm bracelet.  And it's a house to commemorate our 1st house.  And I think, often so in many seconds, that I shouldn't wear the bracelet so much because it means the world to me.  And I don't want to break it or lose parts of it.  But what's the fun or point of it if I only wear it for special occasions?  And each second that goes by I wonder when my 15 minutes will be up.  And if I actually remembered to hit start on my timer of if I'm close to done because my hand is cramping and hurting.  I've decided, in more than a second but the idea took only a second, that I should take 1 of my ideas from this and write on it for another 15. but I need time to rest my hand it hurts so much.  And the timer went off a second ago.