I stare at the grandfather clock because it is the only other thing in the room, transfixed as I am by its grandeur as much as I am by its mere presence. You see, I haven’t seen many objects lately, except for the clothes on my own back and the knick-knacks peppering the walls of my cubicle. She says I think too much. If she only knew. And time keeps passing by, marked by every slow and steady slide of the minute hand down the clock’s face. I’m standing with my back against the wall, listening to crickets outside the window creaking like octogenarians getting out of bed after a fitful night’s sleep. And she’s not coming.
Her note sits alone and lonely, tucked into my side pocket like so much lint. The words on it I’ve tried to block out, with their scandalous nature, and their serious import. I would have disposed of it already, except there is no garbage can and I couldn’t part with it if I wanted. And I curse her for that hold she has over me, that infernal influence over my thoughts and feelings. But she can’t hear my inner fear, my need to be understood. She can only hear the sound of the ocean washing over my corpse and the church bells as they chime for me. What a shame.
There are times when I think I’ve even imagined the clock here, too, times when reality would bleed through and show me to be empty. And somehow the world was spinning out of control and I couldn’t catch my breath. Times when she is here in my arms and then she is not, my bruised ego resting on that hope. But I can’t stand much longer, staring into space and hoping that the world is the way I remember it. And I miss her like a bird with a broken wing misses the blue expanse of the unbroken sky above. I know I shouldn’t, and I know she won’t be back, but my dream world says otherwise, and I listen. I strain to hear it over the rest if the din in my head.
It’s noon. I can tell by the two hands that have met and stand still together for a single breath of time, holding on to each other like lifelines, until one shifts. And the shift is at first imperceptible, like the difference between yellow and gold, but then it gives way and the entire house of cards crumbles to dust. The minute hand continues to move inside of the grand clock, telling me to move, to stop standing still and make something happen. Her note burns a hole in my pocket, also imploring me to find my way in this twisted world, in this brave new world where life is not contained within a cubicle, and where imagination is not all there is. It cannot be, or I will soon fade to nothing. My feet begin to move of their own accord, taking me away from my exile and toward a future unknown and varied, like each grain of sand on the beach. And I don’t look back.
Sam
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