Your fingers are becoming numb. The numbness is creeping up your arms. You feel heavy. Your limbs are like lead weights. His voice floated over our heads and I tried to feel numb but something kept distracting me. It was a short zap accompanied by the faint odour of death.

Concentrate on your breathing. There was a record playing. In search of the lost chord by the melody Blues. Between its obvious drug references and Eastern mysticism I could hear a flute playing. They spoke of Timothy Leary and astral travel. The incorporated "om" into their dense lyric structure. They had mantras printed on the gatefold sleeve of the record.

I expect you were meant to tune into this mid-60's groove by smoking a reefer , riding the white dragon or dropping a tab. You know; "Let your body loose baby and spin out of the mind-numbing hallucinogenic wonder of the Moodies," but I think a lot o the connections were lost on schoolboys lying on their backs. Where was the noise coming from?

Let the air enter your mouth, breathe in and let it leave through your nostrils. Breathe out. I found it. My eyes were wide open and fixed on a device on the wall. It was slightly to the left above my head. A perfect halo of shimmering blue in a cage of white wire. A fly zapper, but it didn't seem to discriminate, and creeping, crawling, flying thing was treated in the same manner- instantaneous death. As the class commenced their inward journey I was stuck outside myself. I couldn't tear my eyes from it. This thing of luminous beauty seemed to take on a life of its own.

You are the universe and the universe is in you... The humming machine claimed another victim. It was curious to contemplate my morality while insects discovered theirs. I was trying to sink deeper and deeper into myself to come to a greater understanding of my role in the universe, while the game of life was being enacted right in front of me. I wondered if it would always be that way: life and death, just out of reach, above my head.

Breathe slowly, listen to your heart... But my heart was a dull, distant drum and quite boring when placed alongside the intermittent crackle of the zapper. That sound had spirit and zest. That sound was dynamic. That sound was going places. That was the sound of the eternal struggle. I think someone had started snorting.

You are on a journey...into inner space...into silence... God, this thing was good. There weren't this many bugs in all of Christendom. I was sure some of these tiny beasties were flying from miles away just to see it. "Yeah man, a beautiful circle of blue. C'mon, let's take a closer look." Excited moths in other countries dreaming of the day they'd seem the light. There had to be some heavy karma happening there. A crackle of electricity, a plume of smoke, and the charcoaled body of another moth was fused forever to what it had most desired. The blue neon kept up its merciless crusade.

Imagine a light. I didn't have to, it was there! A halo luring innocence to its doom. The quest for inner peace was lost on me. Where the others found their would glimpsed heaven within, I saw fragments of transparent wings.

Corridors are haunting me. They fill my dreams and in my waking hours I find they enclose me. I am trapped and tortured by the mere thought of them. I see them everywhere as part of everything. I have tried to avoid them but it is to no avail. Once I leave the safety of the room, I am in one. There is another leading to the front door. There is no other way out of the house so I am forced to use one to leave my own home. Then I find myself in another and another. The places I work are riddled with them. Look around, you could be in one right now. I am not limiting my notion of the corridor to a carpeted stretch of floor from the front door to the kids; bedrooms, a useless ante-chamber cluttered with trinkets, books and framed photos of the family. I see the corridor as any space that serves to separate or 'unite' two distinct areas. They are the spaces between spaces, segments between rooms. They are meant to link spaces, but to me they create division. We have an over-reliance on them. They turn our houses into rabbit warrens, our buildings into Swiss cheese, our lives into misery.

Picture, if you will, your most potent memory of a corridor. The hospital corridor? The corridor outside the Principal's office? The corridor of a prospective employer? The endless weaving corridors of bureaucracy? I have begun to loathe and fear them. They are an anti-apace space, a form of architectural purgatory, a linear maze.

There are two popular theories as to their origin. One claims they are descendants of the aqueduct and other forms of Roman plumbing. The lead-lined tubes that carried people, the purpose being very similar. The other is that they became a fundamental part of European architecture during the reign of Victoria and symbolize the worst excess of Puritanism. Their function was to shield, to disguise and to hide.

We speak of the "corridors of power" because we know this is where true power lies, skulking around a corner outside the honesty of the room. They were put in place so delicate conversations could not be overheard, so parents could conceal their passions, so governments could plan and conspire. They were designed to throw up a veil of secrecy and separate age from youth, men from women, knowledge from innocence.

Where a fine room will make a statement, a corridor will always pose a question. if I venture this way, what will become of me? What is at the end of this passage? Even as I write there is one corridor stretching off to my left and another off to my right. I am stuck in the middle, a rat at a T-junction. Of late I have started to wonder about their real purpose. They have begun to infiltrate the arts. They have been in paintings, poems and referenced in songs. Corridors are where most of the action takes place in a thriller, horror and adventure films. They are a means of escape.

They have even appeared in mature, dramatic pieces. Bergman was prone to a corridor now and then. They also inhabit the four elements. We have corridors of fire, air, earth and water. They lie in wait in cinemas, cathedrals and casinos. Everytime you switch on the television, you can see them lurking in the background. In most computer games, you battle in endless mutating artificial corridors. Lifts are merely cramped vertical corridors that dump you at long, horizontal ones. They also come disguised as modes of transport (corridors with wheels) trains, buses and trams, And what is an aeroplane, if not a corridor with wings.

When we are born we are forced out of a corridor of flesh into the harsh glare of life. Is it any wonder that as we depart this world there is another corridor, a corridor of light? No one, who has come back to us, has made it all the way along this final corridor. No one can tell us what's there or where it takes us. The tales of the journey are vague, often confused and yet they all agree on one point: a long corridor with a bright light at the end. Is it a passageway to heaven or an after image burnt on to the optic nerve as our brains give out? Probably just an infinite corridor: One last eternal joke at our expense.

I was recently trying to book some tickets for a small trip overseas. Sixteen hours of sheer hell...not the trip, the phone calls. In the time I spent on the phone I could have traveled to America, and come back. I was so tense I needed a holiday just to get the memory of the phone calls out of my system.

"If you want to confirm your tickets-press one". What do I press to speak to a human? I want to hear a human voice.(Of course when I speak to a human being I want the machine back.)

"If you want information about other arrangements- press two"

Can these people speak any more slowly? If timed local calls happen in this country, within hours we'll have the economy of Albania. And never get stuck on a call with your mobile. That's the fast track to poverty. You may as well burn your money. At least it'd keep you warm.

"I'll be with you in a minute sir"

When did the meaning of the word "minute" change? Surely a minute still comprises 60 seconds. These seconds follow each other, one after another, in quick succession, with no gaps. Or has the term minute a different meaning when you're on the phone ? Is that a "real" minute or a "phone" minute?

In a phone minute the seasons change, the years come and go, your children grow up and move out. The phone minute can be used to denote any length of time, as in, God created the world in a phone minute.

Most of the time I was alone in Hold World-limbo for the living. A comforting recorded voice told me what a great service I was getting. That voice, always so gosh darn happy so infuriatingly understanding, offering me wonderful incentives and letting me know what a clever chap I was for choosing this business.

Spaced evenly through the incentives were the apologies.

"Your call is important to us" If it's so important speak to me.

"All our operators are busy" So employ some more.

"We'll be with you shortly" LIAR(will that be in a minute?)

"Thank you for calling and now some music specially designed to torture your brains." Is it a coincidence that most offensive tunes humanity has to offer are played every time you're on hold?

My ears suffered the indignity of Roxette as I waited for my six-digit code. I-for Inefficient, M-for Mistake, W-for Wait, L-for Long Wait, E-for Extra Long Wait, P for Pay Us NOW. The six-digit makes everything more efficient, things really move once those magic numbers are quoted. But to quote them you have to spend time in the Hold World, and speak to Mr I-don't-really-care-if-you-live-or-die Recorded voice.

I discovered the person I had a problem with was also the person I should complain to if I had a problem. I told her something wasn't quite right, she said nothing was wrong, and that's were it ended. Thank God Kafka didn't live to see this.

After the ordeal, I had to speak with someone to get it all of my chest. I called a busy friend. Have you ever tried to tell a deeply personal and traumatic story to someone who has 'call waiting'? It's embarrassingly cruel. There's that tell-tale buzz. Your host expresses concern and promises to get rid of the annoying caller. You nervously wait while they see who the other person is.

When they come back, you know instantly how important you are to them. If the continue the conversation with you it's O.K (although you are a caring person you worry about the caller who has been rejected). If they say, sorry, I have another call, you don't mind, do you, we'll talk later, this is important...you're wretched.

So I am going to have a holiday. I think I need one, but please, don't expect a phone call.

We spend half our lives taking it for granted and the other half being obsessed by its nearness. It is our most precious commodity, more precious than any earthly riches, and yet more unattainable. We have tried to store, stack and accumulate it like wealth.

It's time.

Our generation is losing it faster than any other. Look at your hands - you can almost see it slip through your fingers.

But, friends, it can be stopped, if you just believe in science. Have faith and we will all live forever. If we can locate a gene that controls the ageing process we might be able to stop the clock and elongate life - a few years at first, but before long we'll double our life span. we are about to take our first step towards immortality and the achievement of gods.

The trouble is, I believe it won't happen in our lifetime. We'll get close. It'll be the last thing we hear as we're unplugged, the last thing we see before the numbing spasm of a cardiac arrest pulls us away from the TV. "In Denver today, a 25-year-old man has just become immortal..."

Scientists claim it's just around the corner. But if the buses don't run on time, and the mail can't get through, how on earth will we change our life expectancy within our own lifetime? Everyone knows how these things get caught up: religious organisations insist on ineffectual moral debates, someone puts the formula in a post-pack, the government passes a law restricting experiments on humans.

We get lost, waylaid, sidetracked. And the next thing you know, your kids, who'll live twice as long as you, won't have the time to visit your grave. It's those damn kids, the ones who aren't even born yet, the ones who won't respect their elders, who'll benefit from this.

After all, immortality is a young person's game. They'll be able to enjoy it. Imagine being able to hang around the mall well into your 40s.

It just means we missed out again. We've become the generation of losers living in the century of loss. What did we get? TV, microwaves, cellular phones and the A bomb. They're going to get nanotechnology, regenerative gene therapy and eternal life. We will probably be the last generation before time becomes inconsequential. But this is why time is so precious to us. More precious than any previous generation or any generation to come.

We have bought this time with the sweat of our brows and the work of our hands. We have paid for this time with our day-to-day suffering. Now we intend to use it in the best way we see fit. Those two days out of seven, those four weeks out of 52 that we refer to as "quality time". Not just any old time, not like the inferior time we waste at work, but real premium time, the best of time.

That puts a fair bit of pressure on time to come through with the goods. How often have you set aside a specified period of "quality time" only to find that it didn't measure up. What you thought was "quality time" quickly became "Now I have you alone for a minute, I'd just like to tell you what a wretched, feeble excuse for a human being you are" time.

You're often aware of "quality time" only in hindsight, when you have the time to sit back and reflect on what a time it was.

It's a drug. You always want a little more and there never seems to be enough. We have all said it - "Give me more time." That's the problem I'm facing here - I'm running out of it. I'm approaching the deadline. I have to send this off, there haven't been enough hours in the day, I've got other things to do. (Someone asked me for a bit of "quality time" and I'm frightened they'll tell me the truth about myself.) There's no time like the present, but at present I don't have enough.