Clock On The Wall
Tick, tick, tick.
The ticking of the clock could be heard from any room in the house. With walls so thin you could break it with a single punch, any noise could be heard throughout the house but the noise the clock made was deafening to Julia. Not a single second of peace. No matter how many days passed since she came to live with her grandmother, Julia has not been able to get the sound out of her mind.
Tick, tick, tick.
Even outside she heard it, at school, at friends, even out at her part-time job where there were many customers talking with a loud voice not wary of their surroundings. It was as if the sound was ingrained in her head.
The clock was a huge one. It was shaped like a wrist watch and hung on the wall, just on top of the couch. It was huge in her eyes, the biggest watch she’s ever seen. She remembered the times when she was younger, looking up at the clock, waiting for the new hour to begin.
The clock on the wall ticked. Julia wondered. How close is the new hour? When will the activity start? Will it cost her her life this time?
Tick, tick, tick.
It was all fun and games when she was younger, when she didn’t have to live in this house. Now, there isn’t anything fun about the tasks she had to face. Julia once refused to do as the clock said and that was what led her to become an orphan. Having to live with a blind grandmother and getting a job to support the two of them at the age of 17 wasn’t the way she had planned her life to be.
Never refuse the clock.
It will lead you to your death one way or another, better take your time.
No matter how many times Julia took it off the living room wall and chucked it out, the next hour it would be in the same spot, taunting her with it’s ticking.
Tick, tick, tick.
A new hour has begun.
Julia waited to be struck by something, 10 minutes had passed and there was nothing out of the ordinary. She took a deep breath and got up out of the comfort of her blanket to advance down the stairs. Nothing.
She went to check up on her grandmother. Nothing. Checked the entire house yet nothing.
Julia was starting to get worried now. Nothing is happening. Why? She knew something had to be done or the next person dead would be her. She rested her back on the wall, keeping watch of the clock from the kitchen.
Then she heard it. A loud boom from upstairs. She took a deep breath before going back upstairs, the room to her bedroom was open wide. She walked in. A book? Julia opened the book, nothing. The book was empty. She went through all the pages but the book was completely empty.
What did the clock want her to do?
She kept questioning herself.
Her room wasn’t anything special, it was the bare minimum. A bed, a desk and a wardrobe. Nothing else was in sight except the book.
Julia looked around again. And again. 35minutes passed. 8.35pm. Still nothing.
She thought, maybe it’s my chance to escape from this nightmare. Run off into the darkness and never return but what about her grandmother? She did her time following the instruction of the clock and that was what led her into the darkness of not being able to see.
She took another look, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five times. She let her eyes trail every inch of the small room. The noise came from here. This has to be the room. The door was closed when she came out the first time, early in the morning. She was certain of that
“Please… please just do something!” She begged. Julia hadn’t the slightest clue to whom she was begging but she begged nonetheless.
A mouse ran out from under the bed, and out the door. With a loud laugh she ran after it. Finally! Something is happening. She ran around the entire house. Her footsteps loud and nonstop.
The mouse was circling the house, she suspected that it was just a mouse. Not one sent from the clock but one from mother nature herself. Maybe it was just scared of this large woman running after it with no chance of escape and decided circling the house would be best.
Julia had caught it. Caught it with her bare hands after tackling the floor.
‘Eat it’
‘Eat it. NOW!’
The clock. It was the clock that was making her do this. Not her! It was the clock. Something bad will happen if she doesn’t ingest this poor little creature. So Julia swallowed it. Swallowed it whole. She felt the tail wagging as it went down her throat and could basically feel the mouse running around her stomach.
Julia sprinted to the bathroom, retching but not being able to get anything out. She sobbed and wiped the snot and drool with the sleeve of her white sweater. Her stomach churned, her head still in the toilet bowl.
She tried hard to get something out yet nothing was coming out. Her throat burnt as if to tell her to stop.
-
Julia woke up in a sweat. She screamed and trashed around in the bed. Nurses ran in to hold her down as if that would calm her down.
“We need to inject her!”
“Hurry! Hurry!”
“No! Please! I’m not insane! The clock! It’s the clock!!”
Julia gasped out loud feeling the sharp prick of the needle going into her neck.
“Please… stop…”
The two male nurses holding her down let go before glancing at the watch shaped clock on the wall opposite of her bed. Julia was insane for a reason. First day she got dragged into the mental asylum and spotting the clock sent her into a frenzy-like state. Screams and sobs were the only thing you could hear from outside the padded room.
Julia had completely made up a story in her dreams about this clock.
Everything got quiet and Julia fell asleep.
-
She was back. In her home, eating dinner with her grandmother.
“Straighten your back”
“Don’t munch”
“Stop playing with the food Julia”
“Julia”
“Julia”
Julia screamed. Pulling and tugging on her hair to make the noise stop. She wanted to scream louder, yell at her grandmother to shut the hell up. To leave her alone. But her grandmother wasn’t there anymore.
Tick, tick, tick.
Once again the clock taunted her. To remind her another hour had passed.
-
That is how Julia Myers passed on. Reliving the same nightmare because of a clock on the wall of her padded room. She passed away 25years later at the age of 68 still in the asylum for the mentally ill.
Would anything have changed if the clock wasn’t there? Would a miracle have happened if the nurses paid attention to her, let her talk instead of overdosing her on pills and needles?
We won’t know.
We will never know.
What we know is that.
The clock still remains on the wall.
