Time Goes By

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Esmeralda Jones stopped and listened. Where was the ticking coming from? Nothing mechanical moved anymore, not since long before she took her first breath of the Earth’s dusty air. The world was quiet now. The wind and rustling leaves were the loudest things on most days. Her grandma told her it used to always be noisy, technology and motors gave society a constant background hum. When everything mechanical let out its last wheeze, people became dumbfounded by the sound of nothingness.

Sure, the echoes of human life still existed, but it wasn’t the same. Talking, working, and the occasional celebration with music were diminished versions of what they once were. What wild animals remained after all the environmental shifts stayed to themselves for the most part. Although she had never seen the ocean herself, Esmeralda knew the waters used to sing with whale songs. Now they were still places where the negative sound could drive you mad.

Yet something ticked.

The sound haunted her all morning. She tried to explain it away. Maybe her jaw clicked after she bit into a stone that wasn’t filtered out of the grain rations. Or it could be her ears still ringing from the explosion last week when some idiots hadn't realized their scavenged propane tanks weren't as empty as they thought and put them too close to the open fire.

But she knew it wasn’t any of those things. Walking to the trading center, out here in open silence, she could no longer deny it. The alien noise invaded her ears like nothing she had ever heard before. It hung in the air, deafening in its uniqueness.

Esmeralda looked down at Jupiter. Judging by the way the dog stared at her with his head slightly cocked to one side, she knew he heard it too. She took off her backpack, filled to the brim with freshly made soaps, and set it on the ground. Checking her bag, then the small pack Jupiter wore, she found everything was normal. Just the soaps and candles to trade and the small provisions — a canteen, dried fruit, nuts, and treats for Jupiter — she took on the days they went to market.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Jupiter's eyes stayed on Esmeralda.

"You think it's me?"

Nothing in her boots or in the pockets of her jacket. Her cargo pants only held the house key. Another link to the past. Like so many things around her, she did not fully understand its function. Vestiges of a former world shadowed everyday life. Everyone lived in houses from before. Homes that were made for electricity and machines. Outlets that do nothing when things get plugged in. Tons of appliances and gadgets to make life easier, better, became useless junk. Cars still sat rotting on the sides of roads or in garages. They saved some items, refashioned into something useful in their new mix of ancient and modern methods. With all they salvaged, there was still so much wasted.

“What am I missing?”

Jupiter huffed at her, like the answer seemed obvious to him.

Esmeralda took off the handkerchief covering her head. Wiping her eyes, then putting the handkerchief back in place, helped her think. As she stretched her neck, her fingers brushed the chain of her necklace.

Her beloved necklace was one of the few pieces of the past she could hold and remember a piece of her own life. Lifting the chain, she pulled up the heart-shaped locket to examine it. Inlaid designs of overgrown vines and flowers covered the silver heart like a jungle. It belonged to her grandmother, from the era before. Her grandma gave the locket to Esmerelda before she died. Gran had been the most important person in Esmerelda’s life, and it made her happy to carry around a piece of the wonderful woman.

River joked that for all of Esmerelda’s tough exterior, the fact she always wore the heart locket proved otherwise. Esmerelda thought her softness only existed for Gran, River, and Jupiter; she didn’t have time for anyone else. River wouldn’t understand, they had a bleeding heart for any passerby. Maybe that is why they made such a good couple, balanced each other out.

Popping open the heart, she locked eyes with a much younger version of Gran. Though her skin was less wrinkled, the mischievous smile and wicked glint in her eyes never faded. Her hair had changed. Instead of the gray color Esmerelda had loved, she had dyed her thick mane a vibrant green. So much of the world used to be green, not the various shades of brown it was now.

“The fools. All of them damned fools,” Gran told her many times. “The old men had the answers at their fingertips but it didn’t fill their bank accounts, so who cares? They thought their money would keep them safe when the world ended. And people believed them, drank in the lie to keep calm. Well, when the machines stopped, so did their power. They were just as screwed as the rest of us. They could have kept the world green, Esmerelda, but they wouldn’t listen. They killed their mother for greed. Fools deserved what they got.”

Life equaled green. The freshness and vibrancy showed nature was renewing itself. Of course, Gran needed green hair. Even in death, Gran continued to breathe life into Esmerelda.

In the other half of the heart lay a tiny watch face with even tinier exposed cogs that hadn’t moved in over thirty years.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It moved. It moved again. Each shift of the outstretched hands went in time with a steady tick, strong and constant, like a heartbeat. The air went out of her lungs in a giant whoosh. Closing her eyes, she wondered if she hallucinated the whole thing. Her hand knew it was real. The vibration of the moving mechanism pulsed against her skin.

Looking again, she saw it still clicked along. Strong and constant.

Something had changed, shifted deep in the planet.

Something that had slept for a long time was waking up.

Time had started again.