Time
The old chamber is
dirty and bleak, not dissimilar to a dungeon. I sit here in the small
evil hours contemplating the conception of time.
I sit here in the
hallway and wearily view the antique clock adorning the wall. The
night is cold and I feel I am growing old. Yet the inevitability of
the clocks chimes offer some consolation in these morbid times. The
conception of time between two points leaves an aching in my joints.
Arrogantly, I lean forward to snort another line upon the mirror, my
sole escapism from this conceptual error. Time is but a metaphorical
aphorism one culminating in a mental schism.
I am now enveloped
in a catatonic state, one in which time passes down through the ages
and flows onto my pages. I have opened the book of time and it leads
me on to the golden age of the sublime. A divine apotheosis, I have
become the candidate for a timeless synthesis. All of times endless
configurations embody me like glorious constellations. The phoenix
from the flames has flown as I watch time march forward into the
unknown.
Part 2
Some say time is
sublime but it ought to be a crime. I sit here at 1.30am in my
armchair and the clock is near. I sit here in a semi-catatonic state
almost becoming irate as the tick tocks begin to grate. I need time
like we all do, but apparently it does not need me, or does it?
Part 3
It's midnight, and
I sit in the old armchair in the hall and gaze at the old clock
adorning the wall. I ponder on mechanical clocks and lives in other
epochs.
Part 4
Am I doing time,
or is time doing me? With every insufferable tick tock I slide
further into a malaise. I have become mesmerized by the concept of
time itself. Time, in the form of a mechanical tick, penetrates my
mind. The brutal torture it inflicts upon my person ought to be
labelled a crime and not time. As time passes each sound of the clock
now adopts a slight different permutation: is it tick tock or tick
tick? Has this beast of Swedish origin changed its configurations or
has my perception of the noise it omits altered? One day the old
clocks time will be up, then it will remind me of the time no more.
N Thomas
© Copyright Act 1994
Winter
A single clandestine water droplet
hangs from a blade of grass. Icicles cling precariously to a thin
lifeless branch-itself bending and swaying due to a blisteringly cold
wind. A fallen tree blocks the path onward splintered wood chips
cover the sullen earth. Winds that scream, as if possessed by demons.
Banshees howl in the darkness, demanding our attention. Stricken with
fear our bodies contort with apprehension of the unknown. Shivering
evil night, as hell torments our very souls. Torrents of rain drench
the old fixtures of the house. Condensation draws eerie and macabre
ghost-like figures on a window pain. Midnight lightning pierces
through the night sky with the power of a thousand suns, then
instantaneously disintegrates into the either.
A lightening bolt slices a tree in two
and we repel backwards from the flames. Soon after thunder shakes the
earth to its core. The old creek ferociously gushes water -enveloping
everything in its wake. Deafening white noise, ice on breath, and an
unsteady accent onward up the incline.
Looking down below our balance is
compromised, still we take the unsure pathway up ahead. The small
bridge is now visible, though the water level has risen considerably.
Every shallow feverish breath we draw in and exhale drives us
inexorably onward up the path. Then we reach a clearing in the
woods. Now a desolate gravel road is visible through the mist- tis a
glimmer of hope that beckons us onward The earth becomes unsteady
under foot, with each and every step. Embankments give way to the
elements, earth falling into earth. And that hellish vexatious voice
in our heads eternally repeating: “the path onward, the path onward.
© Copyright Act 1994
