What you can do in 8 minutes and 46 seconds

• You can walk 0.44 miles @ 3mph.
• You can run 0.88 miles @ 6mph.
• You can drive 5.11 miles in the city @ 35mph.
• You can drive 8.76 miles on the highway @ 60mph.
• You can swim 8 to 9 freestyle laps in an Olympic size pool.
• You can hard-boil an egg.
• You can eat 141 hard-boiled eggs. (World Record in 2013)
• You can do the prep-work for a meal.
• You can bake ten Totino's Pizza Rolls @ 425º.
• You can ride the Texas Giant roller coaster 2.7 times.
• You can smoke one cigarette.
• You can listen to 60% of Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
• You can read approximately 2,190 words.
• You can read approximately 8 pages of a novel.
• You can read the Old Testament Book of Ruth.
• You can read the New Testament Book of Philippians.
• You can recite the Hail Mary Prayer six times.
• You can type "I love you." approximately 219 times.
• You can handwrite "I love you." approximately 105 times.
• It is the exact moment in time (0846) that the first plane hit Tower I on 9/11/2001.
• You can take somewhere between 105 and 175 breaths.
• You can feel your heart beating somewhere between 526 and 1052 times.
• You can kneel on a man’s neck.
• You can nonchalantly keep one hand in your pocket.
• You can ignore the pleas of bystanders.
• You can ignore a man crying out, “I can’t breathe.”
• You can ignore a man whispering for his Mama.
• You can stop a man’s breath.
• You can take a life.
• You can devastate a family.
• You can incite a Movement.

By Lisa Owens
Inspired by current events - 6/15/2020
“8 minutes and 46 seconds:” the length of the video footage of the death of George Floyd as filmed by Darnella Frazier
A 2nd Place Winner in the WOW (Women on Writing) Q-4 2020 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest ! A Social Justice Winner
​View story here on WOW!

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