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“Tik, tok, tik, tok.”
It was a quarter past mid-day.
The blinds of the waiting room were a sheer polyester that allowed the light from outside to flood into the beige interior. On the far side of the expansive space lounged a grand, milky sofa. Complementing each end of this plushy bench was a set of ferns. The one on the right was a Leptochilus pteropus and the one on the left an Adiantum capillus-veneris. Both were living in white vases.
A litter of women’s magazines had been dumped onto a coffee table. These sleek, thick collations of pages were vibrantly coloured and featured impossibly beautiful women on their covers. Near the unruly pile of magazines stood a jug of untouched water. Some glasses had been laid out besides the jug – someone had ostensibly been trying to make the contents of the canister increasingly appealing.
A female figure sat squarely at the center of the sofa. Although she looked to be in her mid-to late twenties, she was dressed much more maturely than would be expected by her lack of wrinkles. She wore a frock composed of blue, white and black leather. The best way to describe her guise is that it looked like a high fashion apron. There was however, a central difference in function between her dress and that of an apron: while aprons are used to shield the wearer from impending stains, this woman’s dress was by no means being worn as a protective item, but instead as an ornament.
The arms and legs of the lady were crossed in anticipation. Her nails were painted a scarlet that matched her lipstick. The red flecks on her fingers flickered as she clawed at the lock of her burgundy purse, creating an annoying clicking sound. Another layer of repetitious sound waves was produced by the skinny heels of her elegantly pointed shoes tapping impatiently on the vinyl floor.
Her nervous “click, click, click, click” was nearly on beat with the “tik, tok, tik, tok”.
The combination of the lady’s body language, attire and makeup led one to the conclusion that every facet of her ensemble had been chosen meticulously in an attempt to make her appear demure and just a little bit sad.
Despite the fact that she had not been called in yet, the woman made no attempt to read the magazines or to do anything else to entertain herself. For the past fifteen minutes she had been staring straight ahead at the hard and transparent glass wall that separated the waiting room from the parking lot.
Suddenly, the waiting woman caught sight of a spacecraft circling feverishly above. At a random and unexpected moment, the airborne vessel swooped down to invade an empty parking spot. The vehicle was immediately positioned just right; no reversing was required. It did not take long for the waiting woman to understand that the ship was a XQII model. She was only familiar with such a high end spaceship because she had once happened to see one in a James Bond film – she had never even dreamed that she would ever be blessed with the opportunity to feast her eyes upon one in real life.
Equally elegantly and powerfully built, the craft was clearly worth the money that had been spent on it. The woman marvelled at how the vessel had seemingly been sculpted to perfection. Most of all she was struck by the vivacity that the creators of the ship had managed to endow it with. All in all, the features of the ship were enough to inject it with a life force to rival that of a living organism.
Once the ship was completely arrested in its parking spot, a man emerged out of one of the side doors. He was handsome and dressed much more formally than would be expected of such a random occasion. His suit had obviously been pressed only a few hours previously and his eyes were covered by a pair of thick-rimmed wayfarer sunglasses. In his left hand (not in the one that he used to close the door of his spaceship) he carried a pack of cigarettes. He lit one carelessly, shifting his weight from one leg to another and staring listlessly at the smooth cement underneath his feet.
The lady in the waiting room wondered where this riddle of a two legged being had acquired his smoking permit from. She had never met anybody with one – for the past ten years, only government certified e-cigarettes have been allowed.
Sensing her gaze crawling on his skin, the man turned to face her.
Her insides opened up. Something that had before been plugging up the cavity holding her past in place came undone. An unfamiliar and archaic biological sensation which could also be described as an unwelcome stomach-dropping feeling shot up from her chest. Bits and pieces of memories, suspended in her own flowing fluid, coagulated into lumps that made her blood curdle.
The piercing connection between her eyes and those of the mystery man laid it all out for her, plain and bare to see. What emerged from this explosion was uncertainty.
“Who am I?
Who have I been?
Who am I going to be?”
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,”
Exactly twenty minutes passed when the scheduled appointment should have begun, the Doctor decided it was high time to remove the lady from her unexpectedly dreadful purgatory.
“Ms. Pripel Pepole, would you like to step into my office please?” he asked.
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“You see Doctor, it’s a very unusual problem and I’ve been to several specialists who’ve been ever so kind but have never managed to get to the bottom of it,” said Pripel with equal parts anxiety and absolute resolution. Her eyes appeared nearly to be brimming over with tears. She remained uncertain whether her tears were her true and natural reaction to the situation or whether her own fakery had become so ingrained in her that this makeshift sadness had become her reality.
“Yes I can understand why your situation may be upsetting. For the time being though I cannot do much else to help other than take several samples of your cells and try to work from there. Would you step over here so Ms. Reka, my assistant nurse, could do so promptly?” he asked, sounding as understanding and reassuring as every doctor should.
The collection of the cells turned out to be a three step process. Firstly, Pripel’s blood was drawn. Secondly, a swab was shoved into her cheek and swivelled around till a fair bit of the invisible elements of her skin stuck to it. Thirdly, Pripel was asked to pee into a little cup. After having completed this last required action, Pripel was afraid to give in her sample because she was certain that she had entirely missed the entrance to the collecting chamber. Fortunately, Ms. Reka assured Pripel that one nervous excretory incident would be enough.
“Thanks darling. We’ll call you up in a few days with the results oh-kay?”
“Thank you, see you soon,” said Pripel as she walked out.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” continued the clock, reminding no one that time that was passing, that time continued to flow unwaveringly onwards in the empty waiting room.
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Out in the parking lot Pripel hoped to find the man. She needed an explanation. She needed to hold him accountable for what he had done.
Pripel walked amongst the rows and rows of crafts parked carefully so that their edges aligned perfectly with the parking grids. Being a relatively compact parking lot, it did not take long for Pripel to conclude that her search would be unfruitful. She briefly considered whether she should squat down to get a better view underneath the crafts but decided against it because she had no intention of ruining her dress. She found comfort in knowing that a man wearing a suit would probably choose a better hiding place than on the ground underneath some random, dirty spaceship.
Pripel had consciously averted the prospect of leaving her ship in this parking lot for fear that one of her friends or co-workers would walk past, recognize her property and probe her extensively to find out why she had booked an appointment at the clinic. It is a known fact that the hospital Pripel just visited was not just any clinic, but notoriously the most fancy and expensive one in the whole city, if not in the entire region of this planet. If someone saw her here it would be obvious that there was something seriously and urgently wrong with her. Pripel could not bear the thought of explaining her plight to a close friend, let alone to some distant acquaintance.
At thirty minutes past one Pripel abandoned her search. Due to reasons explained above, her own craft, which was grey and an E1000 model (over two years old now) was parked in the alley around the corner from the main parking lot. She clicked her purse open and fumbled at the bottom of it until she was clutching the keys.
Just about in the alley now, a very hairy white cat with a tiny tongue lurking out of its mouth walked across the damp cobblestone. Its paws made a “tap,tap,tap,tap” as it scampered past. Pripel noted that the sound of the scurrying feline strangely mirrored the “tik, tok, tik, tok,”of the humongous analogue clock in that dreaded waiting room. Pripel’s body produced an involuntary shiver in response to this thought.
She glanced quickly at her wrist watch.
“13:32,” it read.
Two gruff hands gripped her from either side. She spun to face him.
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“What a strange woman she was, coming in here and arguing that she isn’t able to age and all that. If you ask me I say it’s all a load of rubbish. Do you think we should refer her to the General Psychiatric?” Ms. Reka inquired in the direction of the Doctor, who happened to be busy arranging the calendar on his desktop into order.
“Only time will tell,” he said gravely.
Ms. Reka and the Doctor were silent for a moment. The sound of the soft “tik, tok, tik, tok,” that crept out of the waiting room and into the office seemed unusually loud.
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“I’m gonna get you arrested. It isn’t legal to go around stopping people’s aging processes!” shrieked Pripel.
“Look, I can explain. I came here cause I was flying past on my way to work and I recognized your ship parked in this alley. It was you with that E1000 of yours that caught my eye a few years back. I’m sure you remember – it was on a Saturday and you were refilling your tank at the Sky Station. You gotta remember! It was the time your credit card wouldn’t plug in and I was waiting behind you in the line for the machine. I told you to take your time. When you took no note of my advice I reached around and entered your card correctly in less than a second,” said the Timekeeper.
In hushed horror Pripel remembered.
He went on before she could a reply:
“From your impatient attitude I could tell that you wanted – that you needed – for time to move forwards. I could sense that your upset wasn’t really about the stupid credit card, but really about how you no longer wanted to be stuck in this stage of life. Most people have that same problem, but in you this urgency was somehow concentrated.”
Pripel looked at him is disbelief.
“I wanted to do you a favour by showing you that you would survive even if you stayed in this period for longer than you anticipated. Patience isn’t something you learn except when you need to,” he reasoned.
“So that’s why I haven’t aged a day since I turned 26! You can be quite certain that I’ve learnt my lesson. But now I wanna move on. I wanna have a family and grow old. I want time to mold me, for time to deteriorate every part of me until one day there is no longer a me,” Propel replied with a dejected look floating like an abandoned rowboat in the emerald green lakes of her irises.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” said the invisible clock that is a symbol for Time itself. Although Time is admittedly an abstract concept, the concept was at this point beginning to grow quite agitated. The Timekeeper had not only blatantly defied its power, but even more upsettingly, had recognized this defiance in the most jaunty, inelegant and off handed manner possible. A punishment for this crime would ensue.
The layers of the seconds and minutes that were piled up around Pripel and the Timekeeper wound themselves into a withering candy cane. Pripel felt her head spin. It clamped around her throat until she was choking on the strands of the future that remained out of her reach.
Leisurely and unsuspectingly, that cat that had just moments ago traversed the alley was back. Still with its tongue hanging out of its tiny mouth, the furball lunged ferociously at the material hanging at the leg of the Timekeeper’s perfectly trimmed suit.
Still struggling with the existential pain of having been made a test subject in a failed experiment, Pripel lunged past the Timekeeper and climbed into her E1000.
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As Pripel drove home, Time chose to give up its assault on her. She had paid her dues. Besides, the infringement had not even been her fault in the first place. No, the real culprit here was the Timekeeper. As Time schemed up ways to punish the increasingly elusive Timekeeper, the minutes continued to inch onwards. There was not much else to be done – the natural routine of things could only be ignored for so long before Time had to focus its attention on maintaining the supreme balance.
Back at her flat everything was just as she had left it.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” said the huge grandfather clock that was hiked up to lean against the wall of the apartment. Pripel happened to have this ancient appliance in her home because she had inherited it from her great uncle who passed away the year before.
“Despite the past few hours I can’t tell the difference between this day compared to any other,” said Pripel in amazement, “I guess we just create these timelines in our heads that cause unnecessary mental strain. The moments don’t seem so different from one another when you’re in them,” thought Pripel, in this way secretly agreeing with the Timekeeper.
This realization spurred her into action. It was her day off. She should do something fun. She should do something active…she would workout! In a mad dash Pripel scampered to her closet . Soon she had slipped into her pink tube top sports bra and her skin tight biking shorts.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” said the grandfather clock as she huffed and puffed her way through the thirty minutes it took to complete the aerobics tape. She had really been getting into retro workouts lately – her affinity towards these was most likely a product of the combination of the type of music and the set design that usually characterized the videos of the perm-haired women jumping about enthusiastically.
“And one and two, and one, two, three, four,” said the lycra-clad lady at the front of the pyramidal formation, all the while bringing her knee to hip height at the verbal discharge of each number.
As Pripel counted down along with the woman she felt like the burn would never subside.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” the arms of the time teller were proving that the contrary was indeed true – time was moving forwards as rapidly as ever.
“The strange thing with pain is that you think it’ll last forever,” thought Pripel.
“BANG, BANG, BANG!”
Pripel felt compelled to open the door. There is no real logical explanation for her urge to do this except that the removal of the lactic acid build up was taking up all the energy that was supposed to be facilitating the blood flow to her brain.
“No excuses from my end. Please, just come with me. I promise I’ll make it up to you ,” said the Timekeeper.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” said the grandfather clock in parting, reminding Pripel that even outside this flat she would not be safe from the way time was crawling onwards like a wise caterpillar.
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In the park the long leaves of the willow hung on the tree like clusters of pendants. Between the leaves of the tree there were incisions of areas through which the pond below was visible. In these blue oases one could occasionally spot the solid sun peeking up from the water.
“Look here,” said the Timekeeper, drawing Pripel’s attention. He pointed with his right fingertip at the loftiest part of the tree.
Something marvelous happened. The leaves shrunk inwards in a non-stop motion. It was like watching a tape being reeled back in time.
Pripel gasped.
The Timekeeper looked at her with warmth and affection.
Pripel noticed that at the middle of the pond was a gushing fountain. Some birds, mostly of the regal and pristine varieties, were floating around it. It could have been the case that the feathered creatures had been placed there for the sake of effect, but their air of belonging was contrary to this hypothesis. There was an individual about to take off, billowing its wings above the water as if testing the air around it to ensure that it would allow it to fly away. It flapped powerfully as it rocketed up from the surface of the water.
The Timekeeper had other ideas. With his right hand held taut towards the bird, he willed it to rewind. To Pripel the rebound splash of the feathery tail end meeting with the surface of the water seemed much more impressive than the splash the bird had created when it took flight the first time. Pripel recognized that this quirk could well have been observed due to some fault in her own perception – maybe the fact that she had not been expecting the bird to land back down in the water made the second splash increasingly impressive.
Having exerted a fair bit of effort in his flashy displays, the Timekeeper needed a rest. He flicked open the pack of cigarettes and started smoking. An old lady on a rollator staggered along the road near Pripel and the Timekeeper. Having spotted the Timekeeper whip out a cigarette, she shot a disapproving glance in his direction.
“Good day ma’am,” he said in response.
For a millisecond Pripel thought the old woman was about to spit at her companion. Ultimately the octogenarian managed to arrest her wicked urge. Still with the intention of making her disapproval evident, the frail lady teetered past slowly, shaking the bulbous grey bun at the apex of her skull.
With the incident over, Pripel and the Timekeeper could once again focus on the important stuff.
“So you see Pripel, there is only now. The past is no longer real if you don’t allow it to exist. Using the same logic, if you believe that what is to come is more real than what is now then it follows that the future is now,” said the Timekeeper with a handsome and bewildered look in his eyes.
“I appreciate all that you have shown me but I’m not quite sure I completely understand,” muttered Pripel.
“That’s fine. Don’t worry, in time it will all become clear,” replied the Timekeeper.
Pripel’s head was spinning. Gleaming stars flickered in her strained irises. Her mind twirled. In her daydream she saw all types of time tellers: there were clocks, wrist watches, sundials and digital alarms. These devices were all suspended in thin air, tumbling and turning about one another and vibrating carelessly in their ever-changing positions. Pripel could feel herself fainting into the void, into that past-present-future the Timekeeper had revealed to her.
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The next day, Pripel woke up in her own bed. She was still wearing her workout gear, meaning that her lack of memory was a result of somehow having been put to sleep in the state she had been in while at the park. A quick sniff of her armpits assured her that she had not showered last night.
Her smartphone was ringing beside her. Someone had plugged it into the charger.
“How thoughtful,” considered Pripel.
She picked up the phone.
“Hello. Pripel Pepole? It’s me, Ms. Reka. From the clinic,” said a voice. Ms. Reka sounded much older over the phone.
“Yes of course! How are you?” asked Pripel in surprise. This probably had not been the response Ms. Reka was expecting, but Pripel had woken up so confused that she was not able to think to do anything else other than to be polite.
“Yes well I have some news for you. I don’t know whether it should qualify it as “good” or “bad” news so I’ll just call it “news”,” the shriveled voice stalled, “Well the thing is honey, the thing is that…. there’s nothing wrong with your cells. According to our examination of them they seem perfectly normal. You’ve been aging all along; your biology is comparable to that of a 32 year old. It’s probably the case that you’ve just been taking such good care of yourself that you haven’t been able to notice,” said the nurse.
Pripel dropped the phone.
“Tik, tok, tik, tok,” said the grandfather clock as it filled the impending quietude.
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WAST WRTNG 