"THREE MINUTES!"
| Written by: | Damian Hospital |
| Edited by: | Tony Vahl |
| Date: | |
| Full Story Available: | The Velvet Mask |
Plot
"THREE MINUTES!" is a short story recounting the fall of Harry Smith. Nurse Blatt explains the tragic tale to a new nurse named Kim, who is disturbed by the maniacal laughter coming from Smith's room.
Nurse Blatt explains that Harry Smith had lived his life as a vacuum cleaner salesman, and was as nondescript a man you've ever know. His habits and schedule had been ruled by his clocks, and he never deviated from the security of his set time schedules. One day, he got up three minutes early before his alarm clock rang. He boasted that he had an extra three minutes. Subsequently, a tragic car accident occurred where he killed a little girl. It have been avoided if he had left his home at his normal exact time. This forced him to be confined to the McNamara Institute for the Psychologically Impaired, since he was unable to cope with the reality of his situation.
Two members of The Soul Patrol, Richard Wright and Sean Brown, disguise themselves as doctors to capture Smith, since he has lost "it".
Creators' Comments
DAMIAN SAYS:
"This little story actually has a lot of important themes in it:
The first one is that we all can't control or get ahead of time, and are bound by it. Harry Smith seems to have accepted that by spending his entire life always following his schedule, but Time has no friends.
The second message is that our future time-lines are altered based on what present decisions we make now. So when Harry Smith actually got up three minutes earlier, he changed his future. Tony and I had previously came up with something called the Time Displacement Authority [TDA], which was loosely based on Walt Simonson's obscure Time Variance Authority from the Fantastic Four. Our own concept of the TDA was inspired by a friend of ours who would attempt to change our plans and always altered our set time-line. For example, if Tony and I were about to go home from our friend's house since we were tired, our friend would say, "Oh! Let's just watch one more Planet of the Apes DVD!" We would stay, and the events that could have been if we had left when we wanted to were subsequently changed forever!
The third message is that Harry Smith should not have boasted that he defeated Father Time by gaining an extra three minutes. This is similar to Greek mythology when humans claim to be better than the gods.
The fourth message is that one tragic incident can push someone over the edge. In Harry's case, he had been a law abiding citizen who had kept a low profile, and never caused any problems. His obsession with time, however, was abnormal and destroyed his life, after he accidentally ran over the girl.
The fifth message is that life is absurd and unfair. Harry was not evil, and neither was the girl. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Life and the time-line are fragile. Harry had just spent his life selling vacuum cleaners before the accident, and then he has lost "it", and his obsessive compulsive disorder blew up and he became insane.
The end of the story shows how innovative the Soul Patrol is with their fake credentials and disguises. It also shows how it's just business as usual for Richard Wright and Sean Brown, who don't even comment on Harry Smith's misfortune. They simply capture him to deliver him to The Auctioneer."
Memorable Quotes
"THREE MINUTES! THREE MINUTES! THREE MINUTES!"- Harry Smith
"Score another one for the Soul Patrol."- Sean Brown
"He was just a number, a cog in the machine, one of countless nondescript single men. He was one of "them"- the generic term used for someone typical of our conception of the general public. He was like a worker ant, never even stressing about anything, just going about his business."- Nurse Blatt speaking of Harry Smith
"I have bested Father Time himself." - Harry Smith
Character Appearances
Nurse Blatt (first)
Nurse Kim (first)
Harry Smith (first)
Doctor Napier (off-screen)
Richard Wright
Sean Brown
Trivia
Damian and Tony received an e-mail from a high-school student asking permission to use this story for a class assignment.
Damian was inspired to write this story by his own (smaller scale) obsession with leaving places on time, and how unnecessary delays could cause a tragedy. This was almost realized years later when an ignorant person caused Tony to be late, and then he almost got into a car accident, killing himself and Damian.
Sean Brown's alias "Jameel" was based on one of Damian's childhood friends, who was also friends with the real Sean Brown.
Damian based nurse Blatt's name from a high school classmate.
He also based Kim's name from a co-worker's wife.
The nurse mentions Doctor Napier as being part of the psych hospital, whose last name coincides with The Joker's name in the first Batman movie.
