Selected Shorts – "It's About Time" (November 6, 2025)

Host: Meg Wolitzer
Featured Stories:

• "The Knowers" by Helen Phillips, read by Stockard Channing
• "Time Invents Us" by Anita Felicelli, read by Kirsten Vangsness

Episode Overview

This episode of Selected Shorts explores the theme of time—how it shapes our choices, relationships, and emotional landscapes. Through two short stories, the show delves into the tension between wanting control over time and being swept along by it. "The Knowers" examines the life-changing impact of knowing the date of one's own death, while "Time Invents Us" revolves around the slippery boundaries between memory, longing, and the passage of years within a marriage.

Key Discussion Points & Story Summaries

1. Introduction to the Theme of Time

Timestamp 00:58–03:24

• Host Meg Wolitzer reflects on the ubiquity of time in our language and daily lives.
• The episode is framed as an exploration beyond clichés about time, promising two very different takes on its influence in our lives and relationships.
• "We spend our lives moving through time, and yet again and again we're shocked, shocked to see it pass." (Meg Wolitzer, 01:27)
• The first story, "The Knowers," is introduced as a "provocative sci-fi premise" about knowledge and marriage.
• The second, "Time Invents Us," is set up as a tale about an artist overwhelmed by a past that may have returned.

2. "The Knowers" by Helen Phillips

Reading: 03:24–27:28
Reader: Stockard Channing

Story Summary

• Ellie, the narrator, chooses to discover the date of her own death, a piece of information now available via a bureaucratic process.
• Her husband, Tim, is horrified by her decision and begs her not to go through with it, fearing the impact it will have on their lives and marriage.
• Ellie retrieves the date and destroys the paper evidence but memorizes it ("April 17, 2043"), bearing this burden alone.
• The knowledge alters her perception of time, making certain dates fraught with anxiety and others more precious.
• She navigates guilt, regret, intimacy, and gratitude in her relationship and motherhood, all colored by the shadow of her foreknown death.
• When the fateful day arrives, she and Tim hold vigil together, hyper-aware and cherishing every passing moment.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• "You do know, he raged, seizing upon the word. You know. You know." (Tim, 08:44)
• "It was lonely, ever so lonely, to hold this knowledge alone." (Ellie, 09:14)
• "Is it ever enough? But enough to have a life." (Ellie, 09:46)
• "I've never been the type to bungee jump or skydive. Yet in small ways I lived more courageously than others. More courageously than Tim." (Ellie, 12:08)
• "Mirrors and windows reminded me that we were a balding, shuffling guy hanging onto a grandmother in saggy jeans. But my senses felt bright and young..." (Ellie, 24:12)
• The poignant build-up to the expected day of her death: "11:54pm on April 17, 2043. We are both alive and well, yet I mustn't get ahead of myself. There are still six minutes remaining." (Ellie, 27:15)

Reflections & Insights

• The knowledge of death’s timing is both a burden and a source of gratitude for Ellie.
• Tim, who chooses not to know, and Ellie, who cannot forget, represent different responses to existential uncertainty.
• The story explores how knowledge affects intimacy, anxiety, appreciation of life, and the rituals of love in long-term relationships.

Author Interview – Helen Phillips

Timestamp 27:28–30:44

• Helen Phillips reveals the story was inspired by her sister’s death, making writing fiction challenging until she found this premise.
• "It really is a story about coming to terms with the fact that we are all going to die." (Helen Phillips, 28:21)
• The story juxtaposes "bureaucratic reality" with "existential truth."
• Phillips identifies personally with Tim: "I am like Tim. I am the one who would rather not know."
• She poses the central question: "Is there something heightened by knowing the brevity of...your marriage or relationship with your children—do you cherish it more or does it cast a shadow over it? And I think this story hovers in that question." (Helen Phillips, 30:14)

3. "Time Invents Us" by Anita Felicelli

Reading: 32:57–57:07
Reader: Kirsten Vangsness

Story Summary

• An aging artist hosts an open studio and encounters a striking young man who is the spitting image of her husband from decades prior.
• Her current husband, withdrawn and obsessed with mortality, is absent—physically and emotionally—from her life.
• The younger double, possessing all the vibrancy and features of her husband as a young man, ignites a wave of longing, regret, and suppressed hope.
• The narrator questions reality: Is this really a time-traveling version of her husband, a doppelganger, or simply her heart's desire made manifest amid loneliness?
• The young man admires her art but ultimately leaves, and she is left with a heightened sense of isolation.
• Later, he returns with cheese flautas, a nostalgic connection to her younger days with her husband, but the reality of time and aging seeps in as she notes their subtle differences.
• The story closes with her yearning to bridge time's gap and touch the past—"the ways that time makes us, but there are also ways it fails to shelter us."

Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Standing before one of my installations, a young man...like my husband, down to the constellation of black moles on his neck, but 30 years younger." (Narrator, 33:30)
• "Marriage is a way to be sure you never know someone as he is by himself. Not entirely." (Narrator, 45:08)
• "We had invented each other at the start, only to unmake each other over the years." (Narrator, 55:20)
• The quiet devastation of her longing: "I want so deeply to believe he's my husband, that he's come to carry me away from my present, to return to the past, to start over, to live life over." (Narrator, 56:33)

Reflections & Insights

• The emotional estrangement of a long marriage is sharply rendered, as is the fantasy of recovery through time.
• The artist's hunger to be understood, both through her art and personally, remains unsated.
• The ambiguity remains: Was this a magical visitation, or simply the power of longing and memory heightened by the setting and her own needs?

Host Commentary

Timestamp 57:07–59:42

• Meg Wolitzer notes: "What makes this story so intriguing is the element of doubt as well as the poignant sense of longing. The artist's husband is in the real world, still alive and present, but so absent emotionally that she easily slides into a state of longing and retrieval that might be real magic or might just be a state of mind."
• Wolitzer ties both stories to the theme: "Two stories about the power we have over [time] and the power it has over us—a theme that, no matter how long it's been around, never gets old." (Meg Wolitzer, 58:12)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Theme Framing: 00:58–03:24
• "The Knowers" (full story): 03:24–27:28
• Helen Phillips Author Interview: 27:28–30:44
• Transition & "Time Invents Us" Introduction: 30:44–32:57
• "Time Invents Us" (full story): 32:57–57:07
• Host Reflection & Closing: 57:07–59:42

Memorable Quotes

• "I realize that it looks like, you know, 2.2 children, an office job, a long marriage, an average number of blessings and curses. But there have been so many moments. Almost an infinity of moments."
  – Ellie, "The Knowers" (14:11)

• "There are those who wish to know, and there are those who don’t wish to know."
  – Opening line, "The Knowers" (03:24)

• "Marriage is a way to be sure you never know someone as he is by himself."
  – Artist Protagonist, "Time Invents Us" (45:08)

• "We had invented each other at the start, only to unmake each other over the years."
  – Artist Protagonist, "Time Invents Us" (55:20)

• "Is there something heightened by knowing the brevity of...your marriage or your relationship with your children—do you cherish it more or does it cast a shadow over it? And I think this story hovers in that question."
  – Helen Phillips, Author Commentary (30:14)

Tone & Style

The episode blends wistfulness, existential questioning, and flashes of humor. The host, Meg Wolitzer, peppers insightful commentary with warmth and lyricism, matching the stories’ reflective and emotionally resonant storytelling.

For Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode delivers two rich explorations of how time, and our knowledge or experience of it, shapes the ways we love, fear, mourn, and remember. "The Knowers" is a speculative meditation on the burden and clarity that comes from knowing one's own fate, while "Time Invents Us" relives the ache of lost youth and the melancholy magic of memory. Both stories pose eternal questions: Does knowing our time make life sweeter or heavier? Can we touch the past, or are we forever changed by what time—and longing—have invented in us?

For anyone reflecting on relationships, mortality, and the meaning of the moments we get, this episode is a powerful listen.