It is a Wednesday or a Tuesday, just one of those nondescript midweek days in February when all you have to look forward to is a weekend spent in bed attempting to stroke your feral cat. It is 1982.

We tend to think of time as scarce, or unruly – either racing away from us or dragging by painfully slowly. As the years pass, it can feel like time is slipping by faster than ever. Thankfully, ...