Friday Fiction: The Clock Changes Things

I bought the clock at a normal store. There was no reason to suspect anything weird about it. It’s eggshell white, with twin long, blue hands. My new apartment needed a clock, and since this was the first time I’d moved out, I didn’t have a lot of the usual things you’d expect in a home. Like spatulas. Like a garbage can. Like a wall clock for my living room.

But the strange aspects of it had started almost right away. I hung it up–and it started ticking. But I hadn’t put a battery in it. It was also set to the correct time right away. I’m not sure it was correct when I put it up, but I also couldn’t say when it changed. Stuff like that. Things that maybe would’ve been obvious if I had been paying attention. But I was so stressed with the new job, with the new relationship, that it remained in the back of my mind.

Both distractions ended though. Both ended on the same horrible week. And that was when I fully noticed it. Sitting there, in my apartment, nursing a whisky and a pint of ice cream, wishing that the world had been different. And staring at nothing. Or, wanting to stare at nothing.

But I kept staring at the clock. Always back at the clock. Seeing and remembering. It, naturally, didn’t care about me. It was just ticking. A little loudly. Maybe louder than it had been before. In that moment, a slight chill rolled through me. I put down my drink; set the ice cream aside. Experiencing the crash of knowing that so many things were off.

More than off. The ticking was freaking me out. That ticking sounding like crying, but if it was crying with laughter or sorrow or even malice–that was up to the clock. My mind found each, in turn, possible. Each so full of horrible outcomes–even if I couldn’t imagine them fully.

As I looked at the clock, I understood why they called it a “face.” That clock was staring at me, without question. It was crying about me. I had the urge to throw the bottle of whisky at it. Shatter that clock. Let, somehow, it bleed out its time. Spill it numbers in a pile.

But I couldn’t. Maybe because I knew something without being able to voice it. Maybe because the clock simply decided that I wouldn’t. I think that I eventually fell asleep because I was drunk.

It’s been weeks since then. I haven’t gone outside in a long time. How could I? The clock altered itself that day. I somehow didn’t notice that then, but I did later. I keep noticing it. I’ve gotten fixated, effective, skilled at recording all I can of the clock. I’ve noticed and documented each time it cried. Each time it got louder. And, most of all, how it got faster. Spinning away, like my heartbeat. The face of the clock changing, changing, changing. Like a whirlpool that also holds time.

I think, someday, I’ll step into it. I find myself crying, sometimes, that I haven’t already.

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• Friday Fiction: Liquid Air Delivery (Part 2 of 4)
• Friday Fiction: Liquid Air Delivery (Part 1 of 4)