The Curious Incident of the Clock in the Nighttime

*

The sound of the clock was loud in the night; ticking sharp and rhythmic like fingernails tapping out a steady beat on the tabletop. Eva tried to banish this thought the moment she became conscious of its insinuation into her mind –the darkness in the room frayed the boundary between fantasy and reality too far for her liking. She knew now that if she opened her eyes and looked up, a figure would be standing by her wooden desk, just tapping, tapping, tapping. A silhouette would form from the blackness, molded into shape and breathed to life by her stream of consciousness. So she turned over in her bed, away from the desk in the far corner, pulling the sheets closer to her chin.

The clock continued to tick as seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours.

**

Cornflakes spilled onto the table with a dry clatter, but Eva paid no heed to the mess. A spoon was thrust into the bowl, displacing more cereal, followed by a stream of milk from the near-empty container.

“In a hurry?”

Eva turned to see her brother leaning against the doorframe, disheveled and pyjama-clad. A scowl distorted the features of her face, and she displayed it to him in its full glory for a few moments, before returning to her cereal. Jared was hardly ever up in the mornings; having graduated high school already, he had total freedom. That was, until their parents kicked him out to fend for himself (which Eva prayed would happen sooner rather than later).

He let out a snort. “That was friendly.”

“Go away,” she shot back, taking care to chew each word carefully before spitting it out with as much venom as she could manage. Annoyance trickled through her veins, moving faster and faster the longer he stood there, just watching her with that lazy, silence insolence.

“I don’t think I will,” Jared stepped into the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the linoleum as he approached her. “I’ve got a job interview today, and I’d rather be fed.” He snatched the cereal from by her side, and even though she was finished with it, the action left her smoldering.  

A host of rapier-sharp words were poised on the tip of her tongue, ready to launch into battle the moment she opened her mouth –but a quick glance over at the clock killed them instantaneously. It was eight already. She was going to be late for school.

The chair was pushed back with a screech of protest, spoon clattering to the table. Eva sprung from her seat, and whirled out of the kitchen, leaving Jared standing there still in her wake, gaze wandering to the digits displayed on the stove’s clock.

***

Stacks of boxes upon boxes leered down at Eva as she burst into her room, out of breath from the sprint upstairs. Frantic as she was, she couldn’t help but stop for a moment, gaze travelling the unfamiliar contours of the room. Walls painted a sickening shade of baby blue, floor cold and wooden against her bare feet. Her mattress lay alone in the middle of the room, bedframe not yet having made its emergence from its cardboard prison. Was she supposed to be feeling something, as she looked around? Because there was nothing there. No stir in her gut, no feeling of place, of home. Only bitterness, because this place was all wrong, it was an imposter, a feeble imitation.

Eva grabbed her backpack from on top of her makeshift bed, casting a final glance around before exiting the room. Its weight was the only comfort as she made her way down the alien hall, turning to the stairway and passing the kitchen on her way out the front door. Jared was seated at the table, staring down into the depths of his bowl, as if the answer to life was hidden in the soggy cornflakes.

Slipping on her shoes, Eva glanced over instinctively to her right, to the space where the grandfather clock should have stood, if she were home. All that greeted her was a stretch of blank wall.

With a twinge of unjustified anger, she stepped out the door and into the crisp, autumn air.

****

School, at least, was a constant.  The frantic press of bodies, low thrum of words threading through the air, body odour and perfumes mingling together to form a more unpleasant-than-not concoction, chaos of teenagers scrambling all around her. All sensations that, on any other day, would have her lips turned downwards in a deep frown, shoulders squared for the day ahead, had the opposite effect today. Everything her eyes alit on the way to class –be it the battered, broken water fountain in the main hall, or the crumpled posters pasted up by the zealous eco-group in an attempt to enlighten the masses- widened her smile. Each sight lessened the weight she hadn’t even been aware of before inside of her, familiarity battling the anxiety of change, beating down its walls and freeing her.

“Hey, Ev!”

She spun around to see a mop-haired, sweatpant-clad girl elbowing her way through the throng towards her. Eva rolled her eyes dramatically. “’Lo, Cass. How many times have I told you not to call me that? My name’s short enough as it is, don’t you think?”

“No one should go through life without a nickname. That’s deprivation, I’d say!” Cassandra declared boldly. “How was the move?”

Eva shrugged instinctively, wide grin dropping. “Okay, I guess,” she answered mechanically, “I’m just not used to the place yet... What class d’you have first?”

Cassandra was silent for a moment, brow furrowed. “Geography, I think. Which means you’re off to science.” She quirked her lips in an apologetic half-smile. “Class starts in –“ she paused, glancing down at her watch, “two minutes. Better get a move on!”

“Adios, then, amiga.” Eva forced out, injecting as much false cheer into those three words as possible. It seemed to work for Cass, because she parroted them back, before raising a hand and being swallowed again by the crowd.

Grabbing her geography textbook from her locker, Eva started down the hall, but the sound of her shoes against the grimy linoleum had lost its appeal.

*****

            The sky was sombre as she returned to the house, a deep shade of grey roiling violently overhead. Eva stepped up to the door, eyeing the freshly painted white distastefully. She rang the doorbell, hearing it echo through the house. No sound of footsteps approaching the door met her ears. She pressed it again. That proceeded to knocking, an arrhythmic ‘rat-tat-rat-rat-rat’, and then to kicking, a vicious pleasure in the feel of the door against her foot, and the dull, thudding retort like a muffled gunshot in her ears.

            “Jared! Open the door –I know you’re home! Stop being such a-“ The sound of a car pulling into the driveway cut her off, and Eva whirled around to see her mom pulling in, tired frown lines visible on her forehead even from there. “Hi, Mom.”

            “No one’s home?” Her mom brushed past her greeting, “Shouldn’t Jared be here? He said his interview would only take an hour, at the very most –he should’ve been home ages ago… maybe he went out. Where would he go, though?” Her voice dropped in volume, until it was clear she was only addressing herself. Eva stepped aside as her mom unlocked the door. She pushed it open, stepping into the hall-without-a-clock, eyes travelling to the makeshift shoe rack by the door. Jared’s shoes sat on the grey plastic; ancient, mud-splattered runners with decaying laces and faded red patterning.  

            Eva bit her lip, a strange sort of static dulling her senses. It didn’t make sense –why would her brother leave without his shoes on? Maybe he was in the backyard, or listening to music too loudly for him to hear, or… She didn’t know. The pieces weren’t fitting together, and it was that feeling, like making a puzzle, and there was that one piece, always that one, that just didn’t quite fit, and the anger rose as you tried futilely to jam it in, and you didn’t understand why it wasn’t fitting, and it just wasn’t fair. Eva took a deep breath.

            “…say anything to you this morning? Eva? Eva?”

            “What?” Eva asked, looking up at her mom. She must’ve been talking, but she hadn’t heard a word. Her mom’s face was white and drawn with anxiety, stress lines even more pronounced. First the divorce, then the move… and now this. Eva wondered distantly how much longer it would take for her to snap –or if she had done so already, and she’d just been too self-absorbed to notice. Suddenly, Eva felt queasy.

            “Did Jared say anything this morning about going out after the interview? Was he acting strangely, at all? Was he...?” Her mom took a deep breath, composing herself. All of a sudden, she was hidden again, behind the mask of the distant, unrelatable lawyer she wore so well during the day.

            “No… I don’t think so,” she paused, rewinding the day in her mind, trying to recall breakfast. Had he said something to her? Had she listened? “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

            Time was moving too fast, and Eva couldn’t keep up –seconds and minutes and hours passing her by, and she couldn’t catch them, all she could do was watch. Watch as they disappeared, and left her with only bitterness and confusion.

******

Dinner was a subdued affair that night. Eva and her mom sat alone at the kitchen table, surrounded by boxes and chaos, neither even pretending to be hungry in the slightest. They just sat there, staring silently down at the Kraft Dinner they’d fished from a box, light overhead only shining at half-brightness, rain lashing the windows with violent fingers. It was an almost perfect manifestation of the melancholy threatening to drown them both from the inside.

            Eva and her mom had combed every inch of the house after discovering the runners abandoned on the mat; from the deserted attic to the box-laden basement, every cupboard, every corner, nook and cranny. They’d proceeded into the backyard, shouting his name to the sky like they were calling their cat back in for the night. He didn’t appear.

            Then Eva’s mom contacted the police, standing by the front door with Eva right behind her, just watching. She listened as her mom told them what was wrong, as her mother’s answers got shorter and shorter, until it was impossible to reconstruct the conversation with only one side. The house pressed oppressively down on them, at once far too big and far too small. Eva watched with wide eyes as her mom threw down the phone, sending it skittering across the tiles, a crack in the screen, light fading from the buttons.

            “Twenty-four hours,” her mom spat furiously, “He needs to have been missing twenty-four hours for them to begin a search! It could be too late by then –he could be lost, he could be kidnapped, he could be-” Her voice caught in her throat, and Eva filled in the blank for her, the one word her mother was too afraid to speak ringing in her head. Dead. He could be dead.

            Impossible. She wouldn’t believe it –wouldn’t even consider it. How could he not be here? She had talked to him this morning, singeing him with white-hot words, seen him sitting at the kitchen table as she’d hurried past on her way to school. His shoes lay on the mat in front of them, organic residue of his presence. Jared had obviously just gone out without his shoes, doing something stupid as per usual. He was fine, it was fine, everything was fine.

            The hollowness in her chest remained.

*******

            The mattress groaned as she shifted, trying vainly to get comfortable. The ticking of the clock was like a hammer chipping away at her skull, hunting for the brain tissue inside, loud and persistent.  Why was it so loud? Eva could have sworn it was right next to her ear, so finely could she hear the ticking, the slide of the clockwork underneath its face as the hands counted out the seconds. She rolled over again, seeing the outline of the desk a shade darker than the blackness of the room. Everything was too bright, too dark, too loud, and too quiet all at once, and Eva felt as if she were suffocating slowly, a cold hand tightening its grip around her heart. She exhaled slowly, and heard the rattle in it, the sort of sound one makes when they’re trying far too hard not to cry.

            With that realization came a tidal wave of emotion, sending up a prickle behind her eyes, blurring her vision and sending a leaden weight plummeting into her stomach. Except, it wasn’t sudden at all, because it had been there all along, and she had been ignoring it, so well that it had been forgotten. And then she couldn’t help it, the barrier was broken, and, maybe, so was she. The tears dripped off the side of her face and nose, crashing softly against the pillow.

            Eva cried for a long time –longer than she would ever admit to anyone, least of all herself. The tears fell for her father, who had left (a mix of anger and sadness), for her old house, where she had lived all her life (melancholy), for her new one (bitterness), for her mother (guilt), for her brother (fear, anger, anxiety, and tribulation), and for herself.

            At last, she stopped, eyes red and smarting. Sitting up in her bed, she turned over the pillow, both hiding the evidence of her weakness, and making it more comfortable for her to lie down again –though part of her wanted to leave it as it was, out of sheer masochism.

            Tiredness washed over her then, and she felt her eyes begin to close. Her body began to droop like a plant gone too long without water, and she let it, falling back against the mattress. Eyes closed fully then, and then came that sensation of falling, freefalling just before you hit sleep. The clock continued to tick.

********

The clock. What time was it?

That thought dragged her unwillingly back from the border of sleep, and Eva lay there for a few moments, contemplating whether or not to get up and turn on the light to check. The question niggled at the back of her mind, insistent.

She got to her feet, goose bumps rising on her skin as her toes touched the icy floor. Eva made her way across the room, walking tiptoe so as to not wake her mom across the hall. A stack of boxes leered down at her from next to the light switch, malevolent in the darkness. She flipped the switch, and the brightness flooded the room, overwhelming her. Eva shut her eyes momentarily, the backs of her eyelids seared red. Squinting, she blinked rapidly as they adjusted. Boxes, and the same ugly shade of baby blue filled her sight. Eva cast her gaze along the walls.

There was no clock. 

*********

            That wasn’t possible. She heard it, heard it right next to her ear, loud and most certainly there. Ticking. Her eyes began to move faster, side-to-side and all around as she swiveled on the spot, taking in the far wall then back again. Nothing –just boxes and blue.

            Suddenly she was afraid, more than she had any right to be. It fizzled through her like a bolt of electricity, running through her synapses and raising the hair on her arms and legs. It danced across her brain, smearing her thoughts with bright flashes of light.  Where was the clock?

            Was there a clock?

            And, if not, then what was making that noise? That steady tick -so loud, and far too close. A thousand different scenarios sprang to mind; visions of axe murderers sharpening their axes to a beat, monsters with metronomes for hearts, lurking just out of sight. Beasts that had taken her brother as soon as he was alone, stealing from the shadows and snuffing the flame that kept him alive. The air seemed to be sparse in the room all of a sudden, or thin, because she couldn’t get enough of it, and she was breathing so fast to compensate, but it wasn’t helping. Her fingertips began to tingle, as did her ice-cold toes, and a fog began to drift its way through her ears and into her mind.

**********

            The ticking sped up all of a sudden; followed by a slow, malicious creak, like in all of those horror movies Eva never had the courage to watch. It was the closet door, she knew, because she was facing it, and she could see it opening right before her eyes. A form began to make itself visible, glinting strangely in the artificial light. Eva had passed beyond fear, beyond terror even, to sheer paralysis –the last step before the inevitable rigor mortis.

            In the end, it was a man. It was and it wasn’t, all at once. A man in form but not in soul, made of metal and clockwork. He emerged from the darkness of the closet, glittering. Eva watched, transfixed, as he stepped towards her, joints of intricate clockwork shifting and clicking hypnotically. He was beautiful; a delicate, breathtaking piece of craftsmanship, made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny gears, all whirring and ticking away in sync, fueling a forward motion, driven by a purpose undivinable to her. A hand was raised, and Eva watched it come closer and closer, awe and terror fighting for equal dominance within her.

            And then the fear dissipated, awe taking its leave as well. Everything left; emotion, the sound of the clock that wasn’t a man, the feel of the icy floorboards against her feet, the near tangible taste of metal in her mouth, the sight of glimmering, impossible clockwork. The tide of nothingness washed in, stripping her bare, and Eva fought it back and welcomed it in equal measure.