Thread: The Clock

Tickkk-
-tock.

Tickkk-
-tock.

The clock is off, you notice. The tick lingers too long.

Tickkk-
-tock.

Across from you, a woman scolds her child. You cannot help but
notice that both the child and her are obese. You close your
eyes, but the image remains: the fat woman and child, the off
clock, the peeling walls, the plaque on the door saying, "M. Esser, G.P."
You wonder if that's the correct way to say you're a doctor. Perhaps
it isn't. Perhaps he isn't a doctor at all.

Tickkk-
-tock.

Arranged across the walls are the doctor's credentials. A university
you have never heard of, a signed form saying he is allowed
to be what he is, a whole slew of vaguely grey pieces of paper
signed by people you don't know.

Tickkk-
-tock.

A man a few seats from you breaks down into coughs. He is forty,
bald, alone. Not obese, you notice. The skinny man coughs, and
the patients next to him lean away, as if he had some kind of disease.
He reminds you slightly of your father, except if your father had more
skin. Or blood. Or internal organs.

Tickkkk-
-tock.

The clock is broken, you realise. They will have someone in to fix it
soon. Things should not remain broken. He will come in, and he will
have a spanner, and he will fix the clock. And everything will be all right.

A woman is called in. There seems to be nothing wrong with her, until
you realise her right arm does not move. It stays stationary against
her side, like a slab of meat. It is waxy, unmoving . . . prosthetic. She
notices you staring, but she does not glare. She looks to the wall instead,
and you instantly feel sick.

Tickkk-
-tock.

A man walks in the door; he is wearing a suit, and he leads a child in
with him. He is not obese, nor skinny, nor prosthetic, and he nods at
you amiably as he strolls in. He is the perfect picture of happiness, and
the child he has come in with looks constantly up at him, completely terrified.

Tickkk-
-tock.

The prosthetic woman takes eighteen minutes; you know because you counted.
M. Esser, General Practitioner, whispers to his secretary and goes back to
his office, and the secretary calls in the next patient. The skinny man. The coughing
man. The diseased man.

Tickkk-
-tock.

Silence descends over the room like a dark, choking blanket. It is only
broken by the obese child, who shrieks at his mother that he is bored.
The happy man does not try to conceal his irritation, the prosthetic
woman is still talking to secretary and does not notice, and the obese
woman says that yes, honey, she is bored too but it will be soon.

Tickkk-
-tock.

The obese woman. The child. M. Esser, General Practitioner, pokes his
head out the door as they come in and the diseased man leaves, and
he looks surprised. He is only one doctor, yet there is upwards of a
dozen patients. He closes the door: there is a click and, again, silence.

Tickkk-
-tock.

Two old women come in the door. They are talking, and as soon as
they enter, the silent room absorbs their conversation and it is
immediately transformed into a whispered consort. They are
old, you think. They are too old. They sit down next to you, and you
listen to their conversation with your left ear and the clock with your right.

They are talking about grandchildren. You neither have, want, or
possess the slightest interest in grandchildren, so you listen intently.
One of them talks about Alastair, who is turning eight. Eight! He has
begun swearing, and this bothers her. Eight year olds swear? You did
not know this.

Tickkk-
-tock.

The prosthetic woman leaves; the diseased man has already departed.
The obese woman and child remain inside, then. It has been
twenty-seven minutes, thirteen seconds. It has been too long. You have
not looked at the happy man, but you know he is beyond simple anger by now.
Right now, the happy man is the angriest man on the planet.

Tickkk-
-tock.

Another name is called; it is the happy man and his child. He holds
her delicate hand like it is a flower and he is crushing it. You know you
were here before him, and not only him; you were here before the
diseased man, and the obese woman and child. You know you were
here before them all, but you are not angry. Perhaps you are relieved. In any
case, you are leaving.

Tickkk-
-tock-is the last sound that you hear before you leave the doctor's.
No-one came to fix the clock with a spanner, but that is all right.
Perhaps some things cannot be fixed. Perhaps some things aren't meant to be.

The sun is high in the sky, and blinding. A light breeze sweeps over
you; a few leaves nearby are kicked up, and for a brief moment dance together.
You laugh, not because of leaves, but because you finally can.

Only a few blocks away there is a beachside resort. It is tall, but not
too tall for second thoughts.

You walk down to the resort; the street is packed with people, and
some of them are obese, some of them are wearing suits, some of them
are grandmas. All of them are diseased.

At the resort, you take the stairs, because the elevator would be an insult.

It is windy on the roof, and a gust whips your coat off. You climb on to
the ledge and watch it flutter down to the pavement like a blossom from
a tree. It lands in the path of someone male; from this height he could
be anything from sixteen to eighty. He looks up in confusion, and spots you.
He points up at you, almost as if something exciting is about to happen.

You laugh, because you can, and throw yourself from the roof without
a second thought.