Time

My first attempt at mixing existential horror and monologue in order to create a sense of unease in the reader while expressing my own feelings of depression an suicide.

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The taste of copper flooded my tongue, my senses bombarded with a metallic bitterness, as the astringent assault against my delicate taste buds continued. Blood poured down my face drenching me in a thick, warm cocoon of life's essence as the light washed over me. In that moment I commanded myself to go forth, to go forth towards the searing light… Alas, no longer would my body receive orders of the conscious, nor should it… following a betrayal of such magnitude, I should too surrender.

    God I hate that sound… every tick as every second passes; reminding me of how my life continues to march onward, every earth shattering tone a step away from my genesis as my existence of this form grows weary and spirals into the dark void of nothingness. How long have I been waiting? I don't remember. The clock has barely moved but it's been hours, hasn't it? 

   I stroke my chin in deep contemplation, my finger combing through my thick dark beard, funny… I swear I shaved just the day before. Should I have known today was going to be like this, I think I would have stayed in bed.

    It's been four months now since I left work, it's funny really… When you have money, you never need it, yet while I struggle rubbing pennies just to eat the one thing I need is money. We send children abroad to die fighting to protect our freedom but the freedom we protect is never free. Existence itself is expensive, I pay rent, pay bills, buy food and if I don't I freeze, I starve and I suffer. I never tried to exist, perhaps I don't. It was only then when I noticed it return, as a child I felt it's presence the lingering of a soul haunting my every step, clinging, longing…

God I can't stand that sound! It would be fine if only it were hanging from a wall, but no it just ticks ticks ticks. Never till I was where I am, looking up from rock bottom, envying those slaving away, day after day. Never have I wanted for such monotony and still I don't, but I desire the trappings that such a monotonous existence provides, oh what I would do to feel warm again, to luxuriate among the benevolent embrace of radiant gods. I learnt long ago though, gods are but tales… tales we tell children, tales we tell to soothe our fear, to explain away the cruel, irrational nature of an inexplicable world thirsts upon us consuming every drop of joy, every ounce of will, till nothing but a dry husk remains. 

   Why? Lord, why? Must you continue with that ungodly sound, that constant reminder of our march toward the inevitable, our continuous conflict resisting a fate guaranteed to us from the day we are born.

With nothing left I found myself drifting, drifting into darkness, drifting from one door to the next. So I gathered all that I had left, sold it for a fraction of what it was worth, all in all I had just enough, enough for a ticket, you'd think selling organs would be more profitable but they charge you, the seller for the anesthetics, the room, the antibiotics suppose I could've gone without… I can't imagine it would be worth it though.

   Will the sound ever subside? If I could I would take that clock from its place floating between now and then between tomorrow and the next… I would bury it, I would dig and dig all night if I must and bury where no one will ever hear that noise, so deep that the heat and pressure would slowly, metamorphose the bastard through time turning it ever so slightly into a precious stone, but since time is relative knowing my luck this would happen in an instant and I'd be left with a ticking bloody rock.

   Train after train, rumbling, fog choking me as the engine roared eventually I arrived. Sunlight washed over me gently warming my face, the breeze blew off the surrounding mountains down through the valley to the sea… Home… I was home. I walked from the station to the main street where once I ruled, razing hell my accomplices and I took whatever was not tied down, we were feared, reviled, detested. From five to three eventually I would be the last one left, the last of the wrongens, all gone too soon, claimed by a devil jealous of our infamy. Passing the school where we would watch longingly as other children our age would learn, talents nurtured allowed them to thrive, who needs it? The cafe that we would scavenge for food, diving from bin to bin, we thought we were geniuses spies avoiding detection, but we always knew deep down that they knew. 

   The ticking still? Don't you get it? I will not break! You can't get to me so easily! I spent my life fighting, I won't stop till…

   It was that day, that day that changed everything, that place where paths passed, fates crossed, souls condemned. In the corner of my eye, no matter how I tried to fix my focus, it continued in the corner of my eye. I twist, I turn, my chest tightens, the ringing begins. I've always known it there, felt it clinging, whispering but that day as I reached the forest something changed. Splitting through my skull, thunder cracked from ear to ear, to my knees I fell head in hands, realling to the floor I saw… as I dropped the gun, the taste of copper flooded my tongue, my senses bombarded with a metallic bitterness, as the astringent assault against my delicate taste buds continued. Blood poured down my face drenching me in a thick, warm cocoon of life's essence as the light washed over me.

   Stop! I always thought I would go out quietly, that my friends, my family would gather, around me they would share a laugh, a memory or two, never did I imagine a FUCKING CLOCK!