Clock

‘Ssh, can you hear that?’

            ‘Hear what?’

            ‘Ssh!’ He paused, eyes squinted, lips pursed, right hand raised, the dusty bowler hat resting on his head. ‘That. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Ever so faint. Hear it?’

            ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘No.’

            After a few minutes of rummaging he’d come upon it – a small, black clock with a cracked face. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he asked.

            ‘Yes. Yes, ’tis.’

            ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve a feeling in a past life I might have been an excavator.’

            The other thought about this: ‘Really?’

            ‘No,’ he wheezed, ‘I can’t remember.’

            He crouched, turning over the clock in his hand. ‘You know, it’s funny,’ he said, ‘...ssh! No? No.’ He scratched his head. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes!' He cleared his throat. 'You know, it’s funny,’ he went on, ‘how time ebbs away at the same time – ha! Er, pace, shall we say? – all over the surface of the Earth.’

            ‘Is it?’ asked the other.

            ‘Yes! Yes!’

            ‘Astounding,’ said the other, half-heartedly.

            ‘Yes, awful gay, wouldn’t you agree?’

            His companion looked puzzled, stern. ‘Queer,’ he said.

            ‘Hmm?’

            ‘Queer. It’s awful queer.’

            ‘Yes, yes – ‘tis, ‘tis.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Confounding!’

            ‘Yes.’ He looked around. ‘And what about the universe?’ he offered.

            ‘The what?’ he said, distractedly.

            ‘The universe.’

            ‘The uni― Oh!' His tone lowered. 'Oh, don’t be silly – it’s much too dark. But you know what,’ he began, ‘I bet you that time seemed to run much slower for them.’

            The other paused, looked up into the stands of crumbling grey buildings, almost party to the sky in the depth of their greyness, then looked down at his companion. ‘Not the opposite?’

            He mused. ‘No, no, I doubt it.’

            ‘Hmm,’ offered the other.

            The first was still turning over the clock when he began to recite:

Time, time, it ticks away,

Runs down to deeper grey,

It shakes the material cave;

Thrums in the deep.

And even if I cup my hands

Around this vessel’s loud commands,

Still hidden shall it cull the stands

And make the angels weep.

            ‘That was beautiful,’ said the other.

            ‘Thank you.’

            ‘Where did it come from?’

            ‘Nowhere. The primordial deep. Five miles south of Stoke on a greetings card. It doesn’t matter.’

            ‘Oh,’ said the other. He looked towards him. He seemed to want to say something, but he was struggling with the words. And then finally, 'W-what’s your name?’

            He paused in self-reflection. ‘My name?’ he asked himself. ‘My name – what is my name?’ Pain seemed to float up into the expanse of his mind, like a cork in water: he looked unsettled, jittery; sweat started to show on his brow, streaking his ashen face, their small theatre becoming the more repugnant, until: ‘Ha!’ he said abruptly. ‘Ha!’ he repeated, menacingly. ‘Don’t worry about formalities!’ His erratic grin emptied itself out, until finally his expression once again said nothing.

            The other felt strangely relieved. ‘Well, if you insist.’ He paused. ‘And, er, what’s the – er – what’s the – er – time?’

            ‘The time?’ He looked down at the clock which he held in his right hand. ‘I don’t think that matters now.’ He let the clock slip through his fingers as if it were a fine powder. It settled on the small pile of fractured history and ash.

            They stood there in their fading suits, the two of them, and for some reason the light felt different, strange; the wind blew steadily its empty tone – both seemed to come from nowhere.

Afterword:

I wanted this to be a marriage between the content of The Road, the style of Godot, and the humour of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - but forget that. Tell me your thoughts.