Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Everything is quiet sitting in the hallway. No music, no talking, no giggles– all girls are quietly in their rooms. Tick-tock. Maybe they are doing homework; maybe they are not. Tick-tock. At least I do not have to worry about keeping silence. Tick-tock. The downside: I can hear the clock ticking.
I try concentrating on my homework. If only I could wear headphones! The ticking is getting louder, and I am about to go crazy. Now there are other people in the hallway, but they do not seem perturbed by the noise. I try to act like nothing is wrong. Yet I cannot help but remember…
I have always been afraid of clocks. Mother always says, for every fear there is a reason. When people are afraid of dogs, they probably had a bad experience with a dog as children. Yet I cannot find a specific event which causes me to fear clocks. Though I do have one guess.
My sister and I shared a room. The pink walls and pink bathroom were perfect for two little girls. We loved Disney movies, and our favorite was The Little Mermaid. We were not obsessed, but we did have a beautiful clock with a picture of Ariel and Flounder in the background. I loved the clock as soon as I saw it, but this admiration for the clock faded quickly enough.
I woke up in the middle of the night, just like I always do. I am a bad sleeper. I tend to wake up at least once every night. My sister was obviously fast asleep, and so were my parents. There was this constant noise I could not identify. After a while, I dozed off again. Yet the same routine was repeated the next day, and the day after that, and so on. Almost every night I would wake up to hear the clock ticking. Knowing my sister was sleeping on the bunk above me, and my parents on the room next to mine, I was not worried.
When I was ten, my sister and I got separate rooms. To my disenchantment, the Little Mermaid clock ended up in my room. I did not want to see it, so it was stored in the drawers under my bed. The first night in my new room I woke up again, but this time I was alone. I never told anyone about my fear, and I bravely dealt with the ticking of the clock every night.
My fear of clocks has faded some, but not completely. The hasty wasting away of the clock constantly reminds me of how fast life goes by. I try to live to the fullest and keep everything in order, so that time is my friend and not my foe.