The clock flashed 12:00. It had been flashing like that for a few days and She hadn’t set it. It was easier to believe that time had no impact on her life when the clock flashed. As soon as those sinister glowing numbers stopped it was like their bright luminescence focused to burn away all possibility and fantasy. That light would wake her up to reality of what her life had become.
As far as lives went, hers was not a terrible one. She was loved by family and friends. She had people who depended on her and thought her wonderful. She was involved in lots of activities and projects. She cared about a lot of people. None of that was why she had chosen to stay in this space where time had no meaning. She knew that she shouldn’t feel as though she was an extra in her own life movie, but she did. She had allowed her life to become like the doilies that grandmothers put on every surface, unnecessary when it came right down to it. People would be able to survive without her, and she could survive without them. In this place, where the demonic glow of flashing numbers is the only thing to remind you that somewhere time passes, she realized why everyone would be fine without her. She was scared!
She had always been seen as someone who could do anything with seemingly no fear. She had pulled that off because if the worst ever did happen she knew people would get along and so why not take a risk. What no one ever saw was the permeating fear that dripped and coated everything she did. It was like having the ultimate Midas Touch. Everything she did seem to look good, but it was all to distract from the ugliness underneath. She knew no one would understand why she was so afraid if they knew that the thing she feared most was love and caring. Two things that in every depiction seemed warm and soft and desirable above everything else. What she saw was the chance for pain, the fire that made love seem warm, the barbs that made caring hold on. She knew that if she ever gave into any of that then the flam and the barbs would destroy her. Suddenly, without her, no one would get by. If she cared or loved anyone in a real way then that would mean that her world would run the risk of going up in flames.
She was scared, of loving someone, of letting someone love her. She couldn’t figure out how to love someone so much that it would hurt without getting hurt. Since she couldn’t figure that out she decided to stay here.
The numbers still flashed. The light hit her face and for a brief second she could pretend that it was the light of love, a love that could burn and not scorch. She sat in the dark with only that weak light to keep her company for as long as the sun hid. Morning came and just as she was about to reach up and silence the singing numbers enticing her to stay in the land of no time, her phone rang. She had forgotten it and had to search to find the source of the music. When she answered, time stopped for another reason. From the voice traveling across time and space, she felt the flames and the barbs. But, she was wrong; they were not flames and barbs that came with love and caring. They were as the heat of an embrace made selflessly and the points of pussywillows. Time went on and so did she, but the clock still flashed 12:00 for every time she needed it to stop.
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