How long is one second ?

"How long is one second chichu mama?" my nephew asked me, without lifting his head from the jigsaw puzzle we were playing. I looked up wondering what to say.  "hmmm.. I dont know kutti, why dont you tell me how long it is?". He smiled at me, with his iam-gonna-make-something-up-look. He held his two tiny hands apart as if he is holding an invisible ball and said "this much". The next ten seconds were long enough to pick him up and swirl him around. He put his arms out and pretended to be a jet plane. We crash landed on the bed and giggled for long.

"NEXT.." the voice was loud enough to jolt me back to where I was. I was standing in the queue to student service at my college. It took one soft drink, 28 pages of Mitch albom's book and a day dream - in total a good two and half hours before I reached the counter.While the short Filipino lady waited impatiently, I fumbled through my valet and handed her my student ID.   " hi , I just finished my bridging module and going for masters this semester, I haven't got my schedule for this semester..." , she disappeared into the racks behind, before I finished my sentence.

"Your fee is due " she shouted from somewhere behind the shelves, I bet the student at the end of the long queue would have heard it. "Sorry?" I had to shout back. she held a file while walking back and did not waste any second to rain on me " Your fee is due, U have to pay ......before you start your semester " "but its paid through bank from India" . " Yes but due to conversion rate you are falling short.." , she went back to check some more stuff, while I stood there stumped. My phone flashed with message from my owner reminding me to move out before next month.

After a 15 minutes conversation, she handed me a bunch of forms to fill out,  I turned so fast that I bumped into the girl next to me and my papers cascaded the floor. I gathered myself along with the papers,walked over to the front gallery and sat down.

I starred into nothing for long, trying to find answers to questions that are so complex even to spell out. Then I turned towards the gallery, where they showcased students work to attract potential ones. Two mannequins had freaky clothes from fashion department, next to it was a space car from animation department.  Then something caught my attention. There it was, the packaging design boxes I made for my last semester, sitting high up in the white table with flash lights around, smiling at me. I smiled ear to ear with misty eyes, hands on my mouth.  I held my hands like my nephew and told myself "one second is this long". Long enough to go to the depths of depression and back to flying high like jet plane with hope. Crash landing is so out of question.