flashquake Fiction flashquake |
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It began the year my mother died. My stepfather bought me a clock-radio for my eighth birthday. It had large, bright green numbers with two dots between the hours and minutes that blinked the seconds away in a hypnotic rhythm. I hid myself in that rhythm when, late that night, my stepfather came to my room with another precious gift. He called it special love.
"Oh no, Santa," I said, eyes wide. "I would never want that. Just a clock. Two if you can manage it." Santa handed me a candy-cane and patted my back with his big, gloved hand. I climbed off his knee, stood on tiptoes and kissed Santa on the mouth. I remember hoping that the scowl on Santa's face following my gesture didn't mean I wouldn't get the clock. And so it went, year after year. My stepfather gave me a clock for my birthday and one for Christmas and special love every night in between. He never asked why I wanted them. With every clock came another place to lose myself. I considered it a talent, a miracle even, that these clocks who were my protectors, could keep ticking and blinking and chiming and jangling despite the atrocities going on in the room around them. Every day began as the day before. I awoke with the harmonies issued by my clocks, melodious sounds that enveloped me in the hope of a new day. I would make my bed, then I would take a scalding-hot shower, scrubbing with all my might to remove the filth from the night before. Then I would dress for school. Before leaving my room, I would adjust all my clocks. I showered and adjusted my clocks when I returned from school, again before I went to bed. Precision was essential to the accurate marking of the passage of time. Every night, without fail, he came. I was his escape from whatever torment plagued him. And every night, without fail, I escaped, seeking refuge in the ticking and blinking of my clocks. Days before my eighteenth birthday, my stepfather died. I felt a hollow loss, having forgotten what real love was about. His special love was all I knew. I bought more clocks. I didn't go out. I had no friends. I disconnected the phone and the cable and sold the car. I paid the bills through the mail. The grocer delivered, not that I ate much. By then I showered a dozen times a day, adjusting my clocks after each one, though I no longer knew why. Days turned into months. Months into years. I existed with my clocks, scrubbing at the filth imprinted on my soul, waiting and watching the passage of time, all in the house of special love. Some time during my thirtieth year, my clock-radio died. Lying awake as I did every night, its large, bright green numbers faded to black before my eyes. I shot up in bed painted in sweat. I raced through the house, checking all the other clocks. I felt that if the one could perish, the first, then surely it was only a matter of time before they all would suffer the same fate. The clock-carnage I envisioned thrust me into a frenzy. All my clocks were like stitches in a complex tapestry, a tapestry that began with my clock-radio. Pull that one stitch and my entire life would unravel. I would be naked, unprotected, as I was all those many nights while he violated my body and battered my soul. Reality found me, and I ached. I lay in bed for days, mourning the life I had lost with a clarity that was new to me. Then, like a cold blast of winter, one night it hit me. The time had come. I set about my task. I had a cool shower, only this time I did not scrub. I let the water cascade over my white flesh. Then, walking naked through the house, I turned off every one of my clocks. The pain sliced through me, a red-hot blade gouging out the core of my existence. I killed my darlings, my protectors. I killed them so that I might live. I went to the basement. The gas can weighed heavy in my hand as I walked through each room dousing the rugs and the furniture. The gasoline smell burned my nostrils and my eyes watered, but I did not care. I walked through the house, assured my clocks were at peace. They would no longer have to tick or blink or chime or jangle to protect me. I struck a long match and tossed it into the corner of my bedroom. I was gone before it hit the floor, running through the corridor, down the stairs and through the front door. The fire spread swiftly, destroying the cancer that had been my life, destroying the clocks that had been my survival. I knelt on the weedy lawn and cried. Tears poured from my eyes, tears I had not known since my mother had died. They felt hot on my cool cheeks. They felt good. I was alive. I curled up in a ball and cried for the years I had lost. I cried for my mother. I cried for my clocks and my clock radio, the first, with its large, green, blinking numbers, that had protected me through my tortured past. A chorus of fire-trucks harmonized in the distance, melodious sounds that enveloped me in the hope of a new day. |
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© 2002 by Liana M. Scott HOME | Archives | Submission Guidelines | Contributors | Links | Contact Us | ||
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At Christmas, when Santa asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted a clock. Santa asked if there was a toy I wanted, a doll perhaps, one that I could cherish and love.
