The Torment of Time

Ten o’clock at night is not an inherently bad time of day; during the Summers here the sun has only just set, leaving a lilac twilight in its wake. The heat of the day is waning, and night’s breeze is rolling in.

Every whispered chill that rustles through the trees, every blade of grass that glistens with the remains of evening showers reminds me of the times that came before. For each strike the clock tower takes against its bell, I feel a piece of me break away, and at the tenth stroke I’m taken somewhere I no longer wish to go.

And yet I go, and I see the sapphire sky of a sun set beneath the horizon. I taste cut grass on the breeze, and watch burgundy light dance through trimmed treetops.

You would think I would enjoy a chance to taste the sweetness of grass on my breath once more. The lawns spread into cracked streets now; clover cascades over car parks and courtyards. It’s been some time since we’ve been allowed to trim anything back.

I stare at the sun-scorched bricks of the clock tower, unsure if I’m daring it to sing or urging myself to be strong. Thick ivy climbs the chipped bricks of the church, and I yearn for the day when it strangles away the melody. On that day, perhaps I can move on. Right now, it is 9:57 at night, and despite the breeze I feel sweat bead on my throbbing temples.

The song begins. Four notes, the familiar melody from every cheap doorbell. I fight the urge to cover my ears, knowing the sound would just echo in my bones. Four notes more, a rising progression. My ears feel hot. The first stanza repeats; my chest tries to drown it out with panicked heartbeats. A final trio, and the countdown begins.

Bong.

The sound is lightning striking my heart.

Bong.

My lungs feel empty.

Bong.

I catch the sound of my own gasped breaths.

Bong.

I start to crouch in anticipation. My knees ache.

Bong.

I lose my balance and fall backwards.

Bong.

My heartbeat throbs in my neck.

Bong.

Is it raining, or has the wind caught the sweat on my brow?

Bong.

I trace the silhouettes of growing storm clouds with my gaze.

Bong.

Freezing rain crashes against my arms, sucking the heat from my skin.

Bong.

I’m sitting on a garden wall, fingers trailing through wet moss. The church watches on from the South. A group of raggedy youth trail through the streets, and tonight I harbour no annoyance towards them. I can’t hear them shout over the sound of my beloved in my ear.

“You know, I love it here. I don’t have to wear a watch; the church always chimes on time.” She looks like an oil painting, the sheen of sweat on her cheekbones glistening in the violet twilight.

I feel a smile twitch, the kind of smile that always takes me by surprise. “It does?”

“Had you not noticed?” She looks at me, and I feel as light as the dandelion seeds on the summer breeze.

I shake my head. “I guess not. It’s always been background noise to me.”

“So distracted.” She turns away, facing the direction where the sun had set. Laughter rang through her words.

I brush my hands against the smooth skin on the back of her hand. Her eyes widen and her cheeks flush pink. “So what time is it?”

“9:58 exactly. The clock’s always two minutes ahead, you know. It’s a lovely time, if you think about it. The light is always so beautiful.” There are so many things I would call beautiful before the light, and yet she’s right. I examine her profile, studying how the dwindling sunlight outlines her features in a shimmering periwinkle. Light trails down her neck, rolls down her collarbone, and makes a shining beacon of the heart-shaped locket that always adorns her breast.

“Are you ever going to tell me what’s in that locket?” The words spill from my lips like the cobalt light across the fields.

She swings her legs in silence for a moment before speaking. “When we’re married.”

All of the blue in the world flushes crimson. “We? You mean-- well, you’ve always said it was to do with marriage, but--”

“I know what I said.” She silences me with a kiss.

If time even dared to pass, I certainly didn’t feel it; not until her hot breath graced my cheek once more. “But you... really?” My words could have been carried on the wind.

“Really.” She looks at me, and I swear I see every colour known to nature dancing in her eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Rain splatters against my closed eyes, and I breathe in the scent of overgrowth and petrichor.

It’s summer, and it’s ten o’clock, and she’s gone forever.

I stand up, not bothering to brush myself off. The rain is heavy now, and I need to find shelter. Shelter from the floods; shelter from the fair folk.

I hasten my pace, for the waters are rising. I hear the laughter in my ear, and I try to pretend that it has the smooth cadence of my beloved’s, but comparing her loving tones to these cruel screeches only leaves my chest feeling heavy. I cough and start to run.

I run past what used to be the stall where she’d buy ice cream. I can almost see her there, shrugging her shoulders, saying something about how there’s apparently a dairy shortage. The man who used to run the stall lies prone within its corpse, and though he says nothing, I can hear him explain how he heard from his supplier that every cow for miles has stopped producing milk. I can hear the way my beloved laughs, and how she comments how that is such a strange thing.

I stumble into the park, past the lawns where mushrooms would crop up in rings. We joked that they were fairy circles against the raucous backdrop of children playing rude games. I can still hear the songs of those children filtering through the treetops as we untangled their late parents from thistle thrones and thorny thickets.

“Go ahead, creature of flesh.” I hear a voice in my ear that reminds me of snapping twigs. “Step into my circle. We shall bathe in honeyed water and dance in the moonlight.” I take extra care to avoid the fairy circles, but they spread and sprawl in every direction.

“Come, creature of flesh! Let us sip golden cream together.” I say nothing to the voice that echoes like sea waves crashing. Anything beyond nothing is an invitation.

“I can offer you ambrosia that would kill your mortal gods, come, come!” The sound is like harp strings breaking. I dance across the rings as they threaten to engulf me.

I stand at the top of a slope. We often stood here and gazed into the ocean. This is the place where I held her hand tight, where we swore we’d be married come hell or highwater, where her locket danced through whirling winds. We stood here so many years ago, saltwater breezes indistinguishable from the wetness in our eyes. And yet, I can look to my left, and see myself brushing a tear from the bridge of her nose. I can hear voices, the screams of the young and elderly alike, as this new world engulfs our own with saccharine lies that nobody asked for.

From closest together, we were broken furthest apart. The cleaving of the cliffside. A grasp with fingers trembling, clasping, catching warm purchase. The glint of her locket’s chain, polished silver against glittering azure. The weight of her locket in my fingers.

The locket. Not an ounce more.

Had I not gone to brush that tear away so many years ago, perhaps I would have still been holding her hand.

The screams of years past are gone, replaced with screeching winds and the jeers of the fairies.

Why would I want her here in this broken world? Her fear at the end was not unfounded. She would have hated watching the world she loved shatter like beer bottles on dirty pavement. And yet, I’ve spent my time yearning. And yet, if she were only here with me…

“And yet, and yet, if she were here right now, I bet, you’d sing and dance and you’d forget!” This voice is closer than any of the others, and it rings out clear like church bells. Every other syllable booms, like the ten chimes of an accursed clock.

“How dare you.” The words barge past my grit teeth, too angry to wait for permission. Alas, it’s permission that they give, permission for the fairies to hawk their wares to my soul.

“How dare, how dare? I’ll tell you why. Oh my, dear girl, oblige or die. Your love, she waits. She waits and cries. She just wants you to see inside!”

“She can’t watch me!” I shout my words into the ocean. The tide is rising. “She’s dead. You took her from me, you replaced her with this cruel world!”

“My dear, how wrong you can be.” The sing-song rhythm of the words stop, and are replaced with a voice too familiar. “We do not die. We are forever. All you must do is join us, and we can be together once more.”

“Don’t do this. This is cruel.” My knees shake. The toadstools tower around me. I clench my fists at my side.

The voice of my beloved echoes again. “My love, do not tremble. When we’re married, remember?”

I furrow my brows as anger meets confusion. I shove my hands in my pockets, and brush frigid metal. My fingers worm their way around a chain long tarnished. I withdraw my hand, and there swings the locket, shining like a beacon in the sapphire light. My hands shaking, I tighten my grip and raise the locket to eye height. I watch as the darkened silver glimmers with every colour I’d ever seen.

“No. I don’t understand. I never got to marry her. She died alongside this place. Alongside our whole world.”

“Was I not your whole world?” Her voice rings clear in my head. I close my eyes, replacing the sight of her locket with the memory of her face. Her rosy cheeks shimmer with the faint sweat of summer.

“Always.” My throat feels dry. “You were always my whole world.”

“Then let us be wed, not in the courts of man, but in the courts of the Fairy Queen.” I can feel the warmth of her hands around my right fist, as though she is helping me support the locket.

“You died.” My tears feel hot on my cheeks.

“And so can you. Me, you, this whole world. We can all die and ascend, if you’ll marry me.”

I bite my lip and suck in a trembling breath. “How?”

“The locket, silly.”

“You said--”

“The locket will be opened when we are married. Oh, you’re always so distracted.” I open my eyes, and watch the pendulous swing of the locket in my grip. It swings in slow, calm circles despite the tumult of the skies.

“I don’t understand.”

“Think not of time as a thing that comes and goes with church bell tolls. If we are married, the locket is open, and if the locket is opened, we are wed.”

My left hand moves on its own volition and grasps the front of the locket, followed by its shaky right counterpart.

The clasp unhooks. No resistance.

In the moment that lives between last breaths of indigo and the darkness of a new moon, I hear the church bells chime the final note of eleven o’ clock. I laugh to myself.

I never was good at noticing these kinds of things.