45 Minutes: A Dodgy Dossier by Spiderboy

We were told that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. One man died in the woods. Thousands more died in the sand. Who says fiction doesn’t matter?

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She told me that 45 minutes was average. I told her that such claims were sexed-up. She insisted that we change our regime. I felt that my personal space had been invaded. Then she left. Now I’m in turmoil.

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“Anything can happen in the next 45 minutes”, he said. I knew he was wrong. “Anything can happen in the next half hour”, I corrected him. He told me to shut up and watch the football.

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“If you could just once travel back in time by 45 minutes, when would you do it?” she asked, apropos nothing. “45 minutes after I first met you”, I said. It was supposed to be a compliment, but my ex-wife took it the wrong way.

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Only 45 minutes earlier he had turned the paper over, confident that he knew the names of all the parts of the body. Unfortunately, it was a maths exam. He felt sick to the pit of the region between his oesophagus and duodenum.

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In 45 minutes the plane would land. He would touch down in London and start a new life. But it was so cold here – too cold, now. He knew he would fall from the sky when they opened the undercarriage doors.

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He was late. To be precise, 45 minutes late. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter. A lot of people were late for things. But when he got there, the priest was locking up. His fiancée had left in tears, apparently.

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Trigonometry was never his strongest subject, but he should have known that 45 minutes were equal to 0.75 of a degree. Not much, you might think – but I don’t suppose the astronauts agreed.

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He was 24 hours from Tulsa, but only 45 minutes from New York City. Why bother, he thought? I’ll spend the afternoon in Central Park instead.

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I spoke for 45 minutes, and then asked the audience if they had any questions. A bearded man wanted to know if the factors I had described were causally related or merely correlated. It was the beginning of the end of my academic career.

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“Will I have a fixed lunch hour?” I asked at the end of the induction session. “Yes” she replied, “At one pm, for 45 minutes”. I wouldn’t have minded, but I expected better of the Greenwich Observatory.

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The consultation lasted 45 minutes. I was furious that I didn’t get a full hour. I’ve had it with this anger management programme.

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Forty-five minutes after we’d finished, she wanted more. I told her that I didn’t think I could manage it. We had a row. She left. That’s the last time I buy a girl a Chinese meal.

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It took 45 minutes to get to the hospital, by which time the baby had arrived. I had to bite through the umbilical cord. There was a minimum speed limit and no hard shoulder. It was difficult to keep control of the car.

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The coffin had been in the grave for 45 minutes when someone heard a noise. They pulled it up from the dirt and tore open the lid. I was physically sick when she clawed her way out. I really thought I’d got away with it.

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They had been underwater for 45 minutes now. Time was running out. Her leg was still trapped, but he couldn’t leave her there to die alone. He held her close, and detached the mouthpiece to share the last of the oxygen. The final traces disappeared into the darkness above.

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“This message will self-destruct in 45 minutes…”. There were people waiting to use the phone box. He couldn’t believe the incompetence of the British secret service.

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They were just 45 minutes from home when the car swerved wildly out of control. He saw the wheels of the lorry bearing down upon them, as if in slow motion, and wondered for some reason if she had ever loved him as much as he loved her.

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She marvelled at the creatures in the pond. “I have 45 of them” he told her, proudly. “They’re my newts.”

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It took the rescue team 45 minutes to reach the body at the foot of the cliff. By the time they got there all that remained were scraps. The local farmers raised a glass to the victim. At last, they were going to be allowed to cull the vultures.

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They were 45 minutes from shore when she stepped off the side and disappeared under the waves. Her partner heard her scream as she fell – and laughed. They loved Pedalos.

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The teacher spent 45 minutes trying to explain split infinitives. Despite her best efforts, I am still not sure that I know what to properly do.

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The National Security Agency has been collecting data from the Internet at a rate of 1.5 million gigabytes every 45 minutes. That’s equivalent to downloading 5000 million episodes of East Enders every day. How depressing is that?

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I was planning to write 45 minute pieces, but who can be bothered to read that much? We’ve all got things to do, people to see, places to go – Syria, maybe.

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