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 ^{(it's beta!)}

I

Sitting, ass back, scrunched into this leather sofa, time just keeps tick, tick, ticking as slow as can be, taking it’s time for who knows what. Why I have to sit here and endure this, I have know idea, but sit and endure I do anyway.

It’s one of those times. You get up and go to the fridge, not looking for anything in particular, you’re not even hungry. Open up the fridge door and nothing seems appetizing so you move on to all the cupboards. Nothing more than a quick glance will tell you that there is nothing to stem your boredom in here as well. Moving on. You try the bedroom, all the various activities that can go on in there, you know something will peak your interest.

You can only lie on your bed for so long. You lay on your back, lay on your side, curl up in a ball, whatever, nothing works. And the clock, it still ticks, slowly, methodically, tauntingly. And the ticking is so steady and logical it’s driving me insane.

It’s one of those days, the sun is out but it doesn’t look inviting at all. Looking out the window, somehow the beds, the sofas, the furniture all scream comfort. It’s the same fung shwai setup that makes you stand and pase the room scratching the back of your head and hoping that something will come to mind, but nothing ever does.

Leaving the bedroom isn’t much better. Not a soul in the house to talk to, not the inkling of the hope of a conversation. Sitting back on the sofa, it’s one of those days where you turn on the TV and flip your way through channels.

The clock coos three times. It returns to its tick, tick, ticking.

Really, I just wish that Dick would come. He always comes at the most random times, but never when I really want him to. Dick, he’s one of those older guys who kind of started looking after me when my dad died. That was eight years ago, and now, Dick is the best friend that I have, the only one who really encourages me. Anyway, I wish that he’d show up, but, of course, he doesn’t.

A flash of a channel and you can see Betty who just caught her cheating boyfriend with her best friend. She grabs a gun and you change channels. Use this butter and you’ll grow thinner. Flip. Use this shampoo and the women will flock to your door. Flip. Ride this fancy, new sports car, and finally, you will be truly happy. Flip.

Again, I’m sitting ass back into this sofa. I look catatonic.

The clock coos four times. It keeps on ticking.

Turning off the TV, it’s just one of those days where you sit and watch the pendulum swing with every tick, back and forth. So precise, so exact. Who thought of exactly how long a second is anyway? Did somebody in a long white suit and glasses one day ask, ‘how long should a second be?’ and somebody just blurted out, ‘from now till now. No wait. Now, now. Yeah, that’s about right. That was a second.’ And why sixty seconds in a minute anyway. Everything now a days is turning metric, right. It won’t be long before even our stubborn nation will finally give in and switch to the metric system. So why not calculate everything in tens with time? One hundred seconds in a minute, it’s just easier. I don’t know, maybe that will somehow upset the balance of the time space continuum or some devastating thing like that which I will never be able to comprehend.

Yeah, it’s one of those days.

Next, we all do it, we get back up and walk to the fridge, somehow hoping for something new even when all the while, you know in the back of your mind that there won’t be any new food. You didn’t miss anything last time. But you go back anyway, look through the fridge and its contents, but nothing new springs out. Nothing new. You move back to the cupboards.

With the look of defeat, the look of a shattered warrior, I walk, swinging my legs, back to the sofa. The sound of that ugly little, wooden clock is overpowering. With nothing but the occasional click and whirr of the air conditioning as white noise, the sound of the clock is driving me insane.

I stand up and stand next to the turned out gas fire place and rise up on my tippy toes. Here I now stand, face to face with my opponent. The wooden clock, the kind with the little pilgrims all holding baskets in a circle that dance every noon and midnight, it just sits their, ticking. Standing their, teetering on my tippy toes, I size up and down this infernal clock. It ticks, and ticks, and ticks. It coos, right their, right to my face, five times causing me to jump. And then, tick, tick, tick.

I reach up to the clock and grab it on both sides. When the phone rings, I release the clock and run to pick it up from the receiver. I hold it in my hand till it rings for the third time and then answer it.

“Hello,” I say.

“Eric? Is Eric there?”

“Yeah,” I say, “Yeah Ben, it’s me.”

Ben pauses. “Oh,” he says. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to come and see a movie with me. With us. Me and Vikki. Do you want to see a movie with me and Vikki?” Ben, he always talks in these skippy sentences, fragmenting nearly every idea that his mind can conjure up.

“Yeah,” I say, “But you gotta wait an hour cause that’s when I get my mom’s van.”

Ben laughs. “You’re taking the minivan?”

“Hey,” I say, “at least I have a car.”

“Yeah,” he says, “about that. I was wondering if you could pick me up.”

“Yeah, fine,” I say.

“Pick me up, and Vikki too. She needs a ride too.”

“Fine. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”