Hands Of Time [The End]

Once again I found myself pausing outside a room in my own house, heart pounding, mind racing, arguing with myself what to do. I had to know the truth, I couldn’t just stand there, I had to open the door. I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and firmly grabbed hold of the doorknob. I softly counted to myself, “one, two”, and then swung the door open upon the next number, “THREE”! My eyes must have been as wide as saucers as I scanned the room for intruders, my head swiftly moving from one side of the room to the other. After a couple rapid visual sweeps across the room I actually started to breathe again. From where I was standing it appeared that there was no one up in the attic. I looked at my wrist and simultaneously moved my right foot forward, noticing that there was no wire. As I moved unrestrictedly and easily into the attic I realized that I was now in the environment that I so earnestly desired, and struggled so desperately to be in last night. Everything was now calm and quiet; there were no intruders, no actors for the morning performance. I momentarily stood there breathing in the silence and again trying to decipher what exactly had taken place here a mere twelve hours ago. It all still seemed so real to me and so fresh in my mind’s eye. But then as I looked around for one last time, looking for any sign of life or movement [but finding none], I broke the solemn silence of the attic by declaring to myself, “it was only a bad dream”. As I started to turn myself in the direction of the door, to finally give the call for last curtain, that the play was officially over, my eye caught sight of something that caused me to pause. Hold that curtain! Sitting on the old couch was a thin black, hard-covered book, it seemed to be pleading with me to come over and look at it. I felt a nervous tension come over me as I started to walk in the direction of the book, the kind of tension a person has who senses that a well kept secret of theirs was about to fall into the wrong hands. When I finally reached center-stage I stood before the couch and looked down at the dusty book sitting on the worn out cushions. I bent over slightly and picked up the book from its padded resting-place and then substituted my own rear end down in its stead. As I sat on what used to have been my parent’s old couch I rested the book in my lap, just looking at it in deep contemplation. What was the meaning of all of this? In my lap sat my grade eleven high school yearbook. It had been many numerous years since I had leafed through its old pages. As I opened its stiff cover I knew what I was looking for even though I was reluctant to find it. My fingers intuitively began to flip the book’s stiff pages, passing over faces of friends, acquaintances, and even enemies of years long gone by. Then my fingers began to slow their pace as they approached their desired objective. My hands sat still, slightly trembling, when my eyes beheld a face all too familiar to me. I knew what her name was; all too well, but still checked the corresponding name that matched her picture, all the while tears began welling up within my eyes. It was her; it was the young woman who stood before this very spot last night. The girl so troubled with all the grief and hardship of last nights tragedy! I increasingly began to understand what happened last night, what the whole attic performance really meant. One last piece had to be placed in the puzzle for the picture to clearly portray its meaning. I flipped in the book to search for the young man. After a couple pages I was confronted with the young face of the boy who had been intruding in my attic the night before. As I looked at his face I squeezed my eyes shut in anguish, the agony of the truth piercing into my inner most being. A face, in whose image, I had seen a multitude of times before, but not for many long years. I pulled my face away from his so as not to be any longer reminded of the reality of last nights encounter. As my eyes left the book they pointed towards the lonely corner in which the young man stood last night, it looked somehow different; the mirror was now missing. I set the book down on the couch and quickly walked over to the corner to investigate the scene. When I reached the corner of the room I discovered the source of the noise that brought me up to the attic in the first place. The mirror had fallen from the wall and now lay unbroken on the floor. My heart again pounded as I picked up the mirror so as to replace it in its old spot. At first my concentration was directed primarily on the task at hand, getting the mirror back onto the wall. After a little bit of struggle and a few readjustments I finally accomplished my goal and the mirror was firmly anchored back into its old place. It was at this dreadful moment that my focus switched from reattaching the mirror to the wall, to the actual mirror itself. It was also at this very same time that I realized that the night before had not been a miserable dream after all, but was as real as life itself. I stood in the lonely corner of my attic staring into the mirror and the reflection of the young man stared back at me. It had not been a dream. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place, everything “clicked”, everything now made sense. As I stared at the face in the mirror, all I could keep asking myself was “what have I done?”
As I sat at the dinner table that evening, I looked at my four beautiful children and thanked God for each and every one of them. Our supper table had six chairs around it, all of them filled with an occupant. When we bought our kitchen table the sales person threw in an extra chair, ‘just in case one got broken’, an added bonus. For convenience sake we had kept this chair in the corner of the kitchen, in case we had an extra mouth to feed. This evening as we sat, eating and talking, our youngest turned his head and asked me, “Dad, why do we have one extra chair that’s empty?” As I looked into his young, inquisitive eyes I thought I was going to explode. Emotions from deep inside my heart strained and struggled to break loose. How would I tell him that the chair was meant for the “unwanted” child? How could I tell my children of the sibling they would never meet, of memories that were never given the chance to materialize? How could I tell them of the child, who now would be an adult? As I looked at my children and remembered all the phases of their childhood, all the things we did, I simultaneously thought of my eldest child and his/her non-life, all the things that could have been and were not. I fought the back the tears like a mighty dam against a torrent of bashing waves against its walls. As I sat in the defence seat, speechless, no answer coming forth from my lips, my wife suddenly broke the uncomfortable silence with a message sent from above. “We reserve that seat for our most special guest, it reminds us that Jesus is always with us, even when we sit to eat.”
My wife gave us all her usual wonderful smile, not really knowing what her simple answer had accomplished in my heart. A single tear escaped from each of my eyes. One was a tear of regret for the past that I could never change, the other a tear of infinite gratitude for the One who had given me a new start in life, and had forever changed my future. As I stared across the table into my wife’s face, I noticed myself rubbing my wrist where time held me in its grasp, and nevertheless smiled the smile that only a pardoned man could.




Dale Callahan

Hands Of Time [Part 11-12]

As I lay in bed that night, trying to drift off to sleep, I could not stop thinking about what I thought I witnessed in my attic. Was there any meaning to it or was it a senseless daydream? Who were those two young people? Who was that little baby? As I asked myself these things I was reassured that it very likely had no meaning at all and it would be best to forget the whole thing. As hard as I tried to convince myself of this truth I found my mind gravitating back to these people. My mind inquired easily about the, ‘who’, ‘why’ and ‘where’s’ of the girl but I found that questions pertaining to the young man were far more elusive. I struggled, even to the slightest degree, to try and keep my mind focused on him. Every time I tried to think of him my mind would naturally slip away to thoughts of my wife and children, my work or other occurrences in my day to day living. Why was it that I could not seem to get a mental hold on this young stranger? My drifting thoughts about this young couple eventually caused me to drift off into the world of slumber. And when sleep finally overcame my tired mind and body it was deep, and dream-filled.

One of my children lay safely in my arms, warm and sleeping. Suddenly I stumble, a horrible fall, and as I tumble to the ground, my child falls as well. My fall is merely to the awaiting ground, but the child falls through the floor and continues to plunge into the blackness below. As the child falls it screams out, “Save me, Daddy”. My arms flail out to grab the child, but grasps nothing but darkness and thin air. My arms continue to stretch towards the falling child, until the child is swallowed by the darkness.

The next thing that I knew I had suddenly re-entered into the land of the conscious, my body was extremely tensed, soaked with sweat, and I was instinctively slapping my bedside table on which my alarm clock sat, like I did every week day morning. “It was only a dream”, I whispered to myself as I wiped the sweat from my face. Once I muzzled the alarmclock I flopped my feet over the side of the bed, onto the floor, and just sat there for a second, trying to gather myself enough to stand up and walk. Why did I feel so tired, I usually woke up feeling refreshed? It must have been that horrible nightmare. As this first thought of the day was brewing in my mind my eyes caught a glimpse of the alarm clock, it was 5:26 a.m. The kids must have been fooling around with my clock again, I usually didn’t get up until 6:30 a.m. An hour early or not I decided to get up for the day instead of going back to sleep. Quietly I dressed and made myself presentable for the work world. I quietly tip toed downstairs not wanting to disturb the rest of the family. I crept into the kitchen and made myself a new cup of fresh coffee, the smell of it spread throughout the kitchen. As I walked out of the kitchen I spotted my captor of the day before, the grandfather clock, the time was 5:57 a.m. The house was so quiet, so peaceful in the early morning before all the little feet started to patter and the children’s voices began to echo throughout the house. I sipped my coffee slowly as I made my way across the living room floor to the front window. I looked out to the street to where my car was parked and mumbled under my breath, “was there a van out there last night”? After a couple more sips from my cup I turned to head back into the kitchen for some breakfast, when my eyes again were drawn to the time,
5:59 a.m. As I stood there staring into the clock’s face it suddenly dawned on me that something very strange was going on again. It could have been merely a coincidence but as I stood there burning holes into the clock with my eyes I very much doubted it. The times were exactly the same, only twelve hours apart! Every time I had looked at the clock last night he announced the very same times as this morning. Just as this new truth sank into my mind the clock began to gong, it was six o’clock. The clock struck six times then silence once again overcame the house. Just as I was about to laugh at myself for being so silly I heard a thumping sound come from up in the attic. As my feet made for the stairs up to the attic I could feel my pulse pounding in my neck, what was happening up there? I tried to convince myself that I was hearing things, as I opened the door exposing the stairs to the attic. I tried to tell myself that older houses shift and make all kinds of weird noises, as I cautiously made my way up the stairs. But when I stood outside of the attic door and light was creeping out from underneath it I was simply terrified as to what may lay on the other side.

Hands Of Time, Part 9-10

How long I was unconscious I do not know? All I do know is that when I regained my senses all I felt was the chill of the cold sidewalk throughout my whole body. As I lay on my back on the sidewalk I could hear the sound of course laughing and then the closing of vehicle doors, the vehicle starting, and the vehicle driving away until its sound vanished into the black night. I could not move my body; it and my mind were numb, almost paralyzed. The pain that I felt upstairs, outside the attic, had returned with a vengeance and with double the intensity of my earlier attacks. The only sign of life that my body indicated was the involuntary heaving up and down of my chest as I desperately tried to catch my breath after my exerting race to this final destination point. As I lay on the ground with my eyes squeezed shut, I felt tears push their way out passed the corners my eyes and work their way down the side of my face, depositing finally in my ears. I knew that I would never see the child again, he or she was now beyond any hope of rescue, and my efforts were in vain, too late. I slowly opened my eyes and was confronted with a dazzling display of God’s handiwork, the billions of stars in all their splendid glory were shining on the black canvas of the night sky, and to think my eyes could only taste but a tidbit of this wondrous spectacle. I slowly pivoted my head to the side, so as to observe with my eyes what I already knew in my heart, the wire still binding my wrist. I continued to lie there in the cool night air, sobbing and staring at my wrist and its captor. I prayed with my whole heart that somehow I could be free from the restraint that held me steadfastly to the clock, knowing deep down in my soul that this wish would not be granted. If it were not for this bondage on my wrist, I thought to myself, then I very well could have had the chance to save that little child. But I knew that I was not free, from this impediment that bound me to the clock, and therefore also knew that no matter how great my desire was to save the baby that it was now too late. I moved my body into the seated position and stared at the empty space on the street in front of my house, the spot that just a few moments earlier was filled with the black van. Now, only thing that caught my eyes gaze was my own car that I drove home in. I struggled to stand up, my legs were weak and my body was aching from lying on the cold ground for too long a time. As I turned from the street my eyes fell upon the sight of my house and the thought of my own aches and pains vanished. My thoughts rushed towards my wife and little ones inside the house. My children were still hiding under their beds, terrified. My wife was probably beside herself in fear, thinking that the black van had taken me away, along with the child. As I hurriedly moved to the front door of the house I noticed that light was pouring out from all of its windows, all but one. The attic window was dark and lonely, there was no figure of a young woman there any longer, the light had been extinguished, and the window seemed tightly shut.

Part 10


When I reached the front door I found it locked. My wife probably locked it trying to protect the children. I started groping in my coat pockets, in search for my house keys, when all of a sudden the front door swung open revealing the face of my wife. I felt my knees begin to shake as she looked at me with a peaceful smile, followed by a hearty laugh and the question of how could I have misplaced my keys from my car up to the house? I wanted to turn away from her, running and screaming into the dark night but instead I quickly calmed myself, laughed along with her and shrugged my shoulders indecisively. As I came into the house I noticed that I had my coat on, but how could that be, I had taken it off before dinner over an hour ago? My lips met with my wife’s and then I faked a smiled at her as I began to take off my coat. It was at this moment that I noticed that I no longer had the wire binding me to our clock. “Now, how did that get off” I asked myself silently? I felt my head begin to swim in confusion, my stomach was turning, why was I reliving all of this again, why was I caught in this rerun of events? Was I losing my mind or was all of this but a demented dream? As these thoughts filled my mind I saw my wife’s mouth open to speak to me. Before a single word exited her lips I already knew exactly what she was going to say. When the words came out of her mouth I had to keep my own from flopping open in bewilderment. According to some unannounced cue my eyes automatically turned to look into old grandfather clocks’ face and I noted that it was for the second time this day, 5:26 p.m. This no longer surprised me; maybe I was starting to nicely adjust to my new condition of insanity. Crazy or not I played my part, like a true actor, and told her I couldn’t remember why I was late and didn’t know where I had been. I again spoke my lines, with repetitive accuracy, asking for a few minutes to try and recall my whereabouts for the last hour. Even though this time I really did have an answer to this question. My wife looked deep into my eyes, smiled sweetly at me and then turned her face towards the house’s bedrooms and called the children to the dinner table. My children were not cowering under their beds in terror but were laughing without a fear before me at our dinner table and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Not a mention of the events that went on previously, just hearty laughing, loud talking, and sloppy eating, like all earlier events of the evening had been erased from their memory banks. This time supper went by without a peep of a siren; there wasn’t any loud noises, any van, soldiers or any of the earlier events that interrupted our dinner. As the last of the children excused themselves from the table I heard the sound of the grandfather clock. He was announcing to all within hearing distance that it was now six o’clock. As the last bong of the clock faded into the annuls of history, I strained my ears, trying to detect the slightest noise coming from above. All of my most intense concentration could not generate the sound that I had earlier heard from the attic immediately following the sixth bong from the clock. As the children played in their rooms and my wife worked on one of her fancy art crafts, I sat at the supper table trying to understand what had happened earlier on. Was it a dream, was I losing my mind, I really didn’t know? I strolled over to the front window and looked outside, all that was there was my car, nothing else, no van. I felt my body begins to relax, it must have all been some hallucination or bad dream or who knows what.

Hands Of Time [part 7-8]

The young woman inched her body towards the open window until her legs were pressed

against its ledge. I again screamed for her not to do what she was about to do.

But my pleas evaporated into the vacuum of expanse that lay between us. The girl

looked down to the child, one last look, and one last goodbye. Her arms

hesitatingly moved towards the open window, but move they did. Soon the baby was

hanging in the black night air, its only support, was mothers’ trembling

arms. “Drop it” I heard some voices call up, in unison, from the ground

below. “Please don’t!” I again yelled to her. I looked at the boy and wanted to

shake him for his unshakable selfishness. All he cared about was his pleasure,

freedom, and future. It was obvious that no other player then himself, in this sad

scene, was consuming his now so focused thoughts. As I watched what happened next I

wished that the young girl’s arms were as faithful to their task as this blasted

wire was that bound me. The wire would not let me go for any reason. In the blink

of an eye the three became two, the girl stood at the window silently weeping, head

down looking at the bundle below. Finally sensing that it was now safe to come to

the girl’s side the boy pulled himself away from his lonely corner and moved toward

her by the window. He spoke to her in an assuring tone, trying to convince the

young woman that what they had just done was all for the best. I could not keep my

mouth closed and barked insults at him. “What do you mean what ‘we’ just did”, I

heckled. “You hid in your corner and made her do it alone”, I hissed with venomous

contempt towards him. As I was about to open my mouth and let another torrent of

hateful verbal abuse pour out, I noticed something that caused me to press my lips

tight together.

Part 8

As the young man stood at the window he was closer to me now then he had been

earlier. With this closer position I could see his face more clearly now. Why did he

seem so familiar to me? I was sure that I had never crossed paths before with this

young stranger, who was now intruding my attic. So why then was there this fleeting

thought in my head that I knew him, that I had seen his face somewhere or at

sometime before? The answer to this question would eventually come to me but for the

time being it would remain out of my mind’s grasp, like the proverbial carrot

hanging before the working horse. In an instant another reality, one that was much

more concrete and urgent, replaced this allusive thought. “The child”! I cried aloud

to myself. The melodrama in my attic had reached its climax, I had been prevented

from joining the earlier acts of this play but maybe, just maybe, I could be an

actor in the last scene of this performance. Maybe I could prevent this play from

truly being, from what up to this point was classic tragedy. Once again I bolted

down the stairs, this time with a driving focus that fueled my body to move like it

has never moved before. In a flash I had hit the bottom of the stairs and continued

to propel past the grandfather clock, turned around the corner and dashed towards

the front door of my house. I was moving in such a fast paced frenzy that I did not

even have the chance to look into the face of Father time to see what he announced.

All I could think of was reaching my front yard and rescuing that child. I would

tell them that the child was not un-wanted, because I wanted it, and hopefully they

would listen and understand. My forward motion was halted, only momentarily, as what

I thought was my last obstacle to reaching the child stood before me. I quickly had

to apply the brakes to my legs to prevent me from slamming face first into the

inside of my front door. Once at the door my hands moved with lightening fast speed

to unlatch the two locks so as to remove that seemingly one last hindrance to my

final goal. Once the door was flung open, I shot out of it like a speeding bullet.

The four men were slowly making their way back to the van; they must have taken a

few last moments to finish their cigarettes and conversations before getting back

into the van with the sole reason for their little visit, in hand. I saw the object

of my hearts’ desire being held in the arms of one of these monsters and this only

enhanced my bodies’ speed and my heart’s determination to rescue the baby. As I flew

off my front porch I had only one thought coursing through my brain and that was the

all consuming conviction that I needed to save that child. Within a blink of an eye

I was upon my target, I was within a few feet of the soldier who was carrying the

child. I stretched out my arms to grab the child, thoughts of victory pulsing

through my mind, when all of a sudden disaster struck, and defeat was my only

consolation prize.

From an onlookers point of view I must have looked like a guard dog in hot pursuit

of its mark, reaching the length of its leash before it had a chance to sink in its

teeth. Instantaneously I went from what seemed like a hundred miles an hour down to

absolute zero. For one moment I could almost feel the warmth of the baby in my

arms, but in the next, everything went dark and silent.

Hands Of Time [Part 5-6]

The young woman [she was really but a girl] was crying, her chest was heaving up and

down as she sobbed. She was looking into the face of the young man, her tears

making channels down both of her cheeks. She was very afraid; she was telling him

that her father could never know about what had happened, they had to hide it from

him. Because they were across the room I could only make out bits and pieces of

their conversation. So I tried to read their body language and the expressions of

their faces to try to get a clearer story. As I stood watching I could tell that

she wanted him to support her, encourage her, protect her but he did none of these

things. This would have entailed him playing the role of a man, taking

responsibility, doing what was right, sacrificing his wants and needs for hers. But

he was obviously but a boy and lacked the moral and emotional fiber that she seemed

to cry out for. He stood there for a long moment looking very distant in his eyes

like he was trying to find some way of escape. As I looked at his face I saw a

resemblance to the callused, hard-hearted individuals out on the front yard. As the

young man spoke he tried to convince her that he wanted what was best for her but

neither his words nor his actions gave witness to this truth. As I watched this

drama I all of a sudden became aware of another player who had been oblivious to me

up to this point. The young girl was holding a child in her arms, close to her

body. As she spoke to the young man she rocked the child back and forth. My eyes

must have been playing tricks on me in the dim lit attic because at times the child

seemed but an infant but then for a couple split second flashes the child appeared

to be the same age, if not older, then the young girl holding it. I shook my head

and blinked my eyes when this phenomenon happened and suddenly the child appeared to

be but an infant again. Even though I couldn’t catch all of their words I now knew

that the baby was an integral ingredient to what was happening up here. Now the

puzzle began to take shape! The missing piece had been found and the picture was

beginning to manifest its story. The young man did not want the child, nor the

responsibilities and cares that went with it. The young girl also seemed fearful of

all the consequences that this young child would bring into her life. She knew that

this child would severely strain the other crucial relationships in her life.

Relationships that she highly valued and was not convinced would remain the same if

her ties with the child were to continue. It was like floating in a sea of

ignorance and suddenly being hit by the wave of understanding! Everything made

sense; I knew why the death squad was at my house! It was not for my children

downstairs but for this child up in my attic! The young couple embraced one another

both crying in each other’s arms. Their tears intermingled like converging rivers.

Each one’s tear’s was because of the child, although for very different personal

reasons. Their embrace slackened as she pulled her head back from his, so as to

look into his face. Both of the youngsters looked deep into eyes of the other, hers

searching for something that she could not seem to find, and his evading all true

contact at any cost. Then he pushed her away from him, but I noticed that he did so

without the use of any physical force. By his inaction he forced her to make the

first move. As her arms left embracing him they instinctively went again to

holding the child. I again shook my head, how could I have missed the child being

there between them? As she moved away she turned toward the window facing out toward

the front yard. He simultaneously turned his back on her and busied himself,

occupying his energies on not getting involved in what she was doing. There he

stood, like an ostrich, burying his head in the sand, ignorant of all that she was

doing and going through. He slowly moved in the direction that was opposite to the

window. He walked until he reached the far corner of the room. There he stopped

and stood alone with himself. In the corner was an old mirror that hung on the

wall, it was into this that the young man focused his attention, busying himself

with his favorite person.

Part 6

Back at the window she stood, her eyes focused outward and down. She seemed to be

looking at the small gathering on my front lawn. One of her hands left the child and

reached out to grasp the handle on the window. Her face grimaced as she tried to

turn it and open the window. “Hey, What are you doing”, I yelled? She acted as if

she heard nothing. He also did not even flinch at the bark of my voice intruding

their silence; his face did not waver from the mirror. Could they hear me, I

wondered? After a moment of struggle the young woman took her other hand away from

supporting the child and moved it up to help turn the window handle. To my utter

amazement the child remained pressed to her stomach while she used both hands to

manipulate the handle to the desired position. It was if the young girl was

performing some incredible slight of hand magic act for a mere two man audience, one

of whom was willfully ignorant of her every move and the other questioning his very

own sanity. How the infant remained glued to the girl’s stomach while she struggled

with both hands to open a window was a mystery to me. Then without warning the

handle surrendered to the young girl’s manipulation with a loud crack. Her body

lurched slightly forward and to the left, due to the sudden lack of resistance from

the once sticky window. The young woman now momentarily paused, head down,

thoughtfully gazing at the child in her arms. The young man had torn himself away

from his earlier preoccupation and had his head turned to the side, away from the

forward focus into the mirror. He was for a moment trying to watch her next move

through his peripheral vision; his back was still to her. The girl lifted her head

from looking at the bundle in her arms and turned her head to look over her

shoulder, one last look to the boy. As her head moved across the room to observe

him, his also selfishly moved, with masterful timing, back to its position of utter

indifference, facing into mirror. With new tears in her eyes she returned her face

toward the window. In utter silence both of them stood peering out through their

own personal looking glasses. His gave him only a dismal view of his own inadequacy

and because hers lacked the ‘silver lining’ it therefore only pointed out to the

cold, dark emptiness. With resolve in her face she lifted her hand to once again

grasp the window’s handle, momentarily pausing as if almost waiting to hear the

boy’s cry to stop. In that split second I did not waste my breath but with all my

lunges ability screamed for her not to open the window. Her arm was free to allow

her to do want she wanted to, and that was to open the window. I again discovered

that my arm did not enjoy that same freedom. I gave one last attempt to enter the

room, but once again was foiled by that blasted clock. My doubled-over body stood

erect in an instant when I heard new voices in this all too weird play that I had

been observing. I knew immediately who these new voices were. They told her to

toss down the bundle and everything would be just fine. I retaliated with a shout

for her not to listen to their lies, and for ‘the boy’ to be a man and help her.

Both of them ignored me.

Hands Of Time [Chapters 3-4]

To my horror I see a black van outside of my house. My mind reels at light speed, trying to find an answer to a question that I didn’t know yet. I blurt out to myself, “I love my children”, I want my children, why have they come to my house.” Then I yelled to myself, my hands grabbing the hair on the sides of my head, “this has to be a mistake”! As my words bounced off the front window of my house they seemed to shatter all the noise that was disturbing our world. In an instant, silence ruled the airwaves, you could hear a pin drop, but instead I heard something much louder, the van doors outside slamming shut. I chop my words off so as not to be heard from the intruders outside.

Four men had exited a black van, they were now standing on my front sidewalk, lighting cigarettes and laughing. They were all dressed in black army uniforms with a swastika insignia on both shoulders. Even in their laughter, their faces seem hard, cold and cruel, anything but humorous. Their laughing faces seem more sinister and heartless then comical and jovial. I don’t know who called them but the death squad was just outside of my house. They were here to take an unwanted child from my home and that child would never bother anyone again. But I didn’t have any unwanted children, I screamed in my head. I quickly ran back into the kitchen and frantically looked into the terrified faces of my wife and children. I tell my wife to take my two oldest children into their bedroom and hide them underneath their beds. I then grab my two little ones, one under each of my arms, and run them into their bedroom. When we get to their room, I hug them tightly and whisper into their ears that everything is going to be all right, but they need to hide for a while, and they need to be very quite. They each squirm underneath their beds and I quickly slap the face of the clown on the wall, killing the light in their room. Quickly I run back out into the hallway and look at the clock. What seemed like an
eternity is only a little over a minute, Grandfather’s face now says 5:59 p.m. I look to the front window and instinctively allow my gaze to lead my feet there. My whole body is tense as I await to hear the doorbell ring or pounding on the door, to shatter the silence of my nightmare. But as I reached the window again I see that the men outside are not coming towards my house, but are still smoking, talking and laughing. My head shifts towards my wife and again I ask her why are they outside? She starts to cry again and tells me that she doesn’t know what is going on. Just then the clock begins its hourly ritual. The first gong nearly causes me to jump right out of my skin! Six-o-clock! As the chime’s ring from within the clock they also simultaneously begin going off inside of my head. Recognition! Illumination! Suddenly, it came to me! I understood why the soldiers were here. The clock was ringing for it’s 6th and final time when a loud noise from upstairs brings my attention to the ceiling of the room. For some reason I don’t want to check to see what the cause of this sound is, but my body instinctively begins to
be drawn to the attic door, like a pin to a magnet.

Part 4

As I stand at the door I want to turn and go get my children but instead I slowly open the door and allow my gaze to ascend up the dark staircase. In seconds I too was moving up the stairs, leaving behind me the warmth and light of our main floor and forging ahead into the coolness and dimness of the attic. I moved slowly and carefully up the stairs, my eyes trying to adjust to the new light, or lack thereof. Once at the top of the stairs I was met again with another door, the door leading into the attic. I turned my head down and looked at the foot of the door, light was pouring out from underneath the crack of the door. “What is going on here”, I whisper to myself?
I paused only for a brief moment then slowly opened the door and looked inside. We stored all of our keepsakes and memento’s up in the attic and rarely went up there. Everything was covered with sheets, blankets, and a liberal measure of dust. I blinked my eyes in rapid succession, confusion gripping my mind, I thought I must have been seeing things. At the far end of the room was an old couch and standing before the couch stood a young man and woman, each in their mid teens. “Hey, what are you doing in my house”, I called to them in a stern voice. They just stood there talking to one another, ignoring me. “Hey”! I repeated, louder this time. I was about to tell them to get out of my house, and as I began to do so I took a step into the room. As my head went to pass through the door my body suddenly jerked to an abrupt stop. I couldn’t pass through the door. I looked to my wrist and saw that there was a thin thread-like wire attached to it. I pulled and tugged to get it off but it would not budge. My temper started to flare and I began to violently heave and jerk wildly at the wire, my hands flailing in a semi-spasmodic fashion, trying to free myself from this newly discovered bondage. I quickly stopped this action because each time I jerked at the wire I felt a sharp pain in my body. Strangely enough this pain was not where the wire bound my wrist but instead penetrated into my chest, directly at my heart. “How did this thing get attached to me”, I cried out to the young couple in my attic, both of whom seemed oblivious to my existence. I clutched my aching heart with both my hands, doubled over, then closed my eyes and tried to think about what exactly was happening to me. After a few deep breaths I stood up, opened my eyes and turned my body towards the stairs again. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”, I mumbled to myself as I rapidly descended the stairs back to the main floor. As I reached the bottom step I saw that the other end of the wire was anchored to the face of the grandfather clock. “What in the world is going on around here” I hissed out in total bewilderment. I wrapped the wire around both of my hands and pulled with all my might, teeth clenched, jaw muscles bulging, but the wire would not come from off of the clock. After two or three strenuous attempts I surrendered to my new oppressor, Grand Father time. I stood before the clock, shoulders slumped, head down, trying to gather some composure. Then I suddenly remembered again my visitors, both outside and inside. I quickly unraveled the wire off from around my hands and lunged back up the stairs. This time instead of trying to yell at them and break the wire I stood like a spectator at a play, watching and listening to the scene before me.

Hands Of Time [Chapters 1-2]

My dream, or should I say nightmare, always begins the same way. I am at the front door of my house fumbling in the dark for my keys, trying to get inside. Just as my hand is about to pound on the door, in exasperation, it suddenly swings open and light floods out of the house into the ocean of darkness that has encompassed me. My eyes instinctively squint, partially due to fright and partially because my eyes had adjusted nicely to the darkness before the sudden light shocked them with the intense contrast. In the doorway I see an, all too familiar silhouette, that of my beautiful wife. Just as my eyes adjust to seeing her pretty face, she greets me. She laughs and asks me how in the world I could misplace my keys from the car up to the front steps. At this I also laugh and merely shrug it off, the answer obviously eluding me also. I step into the warm, lit house and give her our customary greeting, a kiss on the lips. As I take off my coat she asks me why I am late getting home tonight? As the last of her words were leaving her lips my eye’s quickly dart over to the tall grandfather clock in the hallway, his face announces 5:26 p.m. My mind reels for an answer but I sit there like a computer trying to read an empty disk, no information to display. I usually got home at 4:30 p.m., at the latest 4:45 p.m., why was I so late tonight? I tell my wife that I honestly didn’t know what was wrong with me and confessed to her that my mind was producing a blank. I ask her to give me a couple minutes and hopefully it will come to me. At this my wife looks deep into my soul, smiles at me sympathetically, then turns and calls the children to the dinner table.

[chapter 2]

Suddenly, I am seated at the dinner table with my wife and four children. Even though it is cold and dark outside the atmosphere of the home is warm and bright. The smell of a well-cooked meal, made with hands of love, permeates every inch of the room. I sit and llook at the faces of my laughing children, all talking to my wife and me, as well as to one another, all in some garbled simultaneous fashion. In the distance I all of a sudden begin to hear the sounds of the sirens…this new sound causes my heart to beat faster. Trying to keep my composure I enter into the table conversation, hoping this will distract my ears from that awful noise, of the sirens. I force myself to share of a funny event that I saw on the way to work, my children listening intently and giggling under their breath as they all look at me intently, hanging upon my every word. I want to reach my arms out and pull all of them to myself; my love for them is so great. There is nothing that I would’t do
for them! My beautiful wife shares some of the events that went on in the home that day, both good and bad. The kid’s schooling was going well, intermixed with stories of inter-squabbling and rough housing. The sirens seemed to be getting louder, but this does not appear to disturb anyone except me, everyone else keeps laughing, talking and eating. I keep eating and listening, half to my family and the other half to the ever-increasing sound of those blasted sirens. My heart is now pounding! Why would they be coming to this neighbourhood? Those sirens only come for unwanted children! I felt a bead of sweat break out on my forehead and slowly make its way down the side of my face. My wife looks at me quizzically and asks if I would like it if she turned the heat down? I force a half-hearted smile and shake my head in negation, trying hard to keep my composure.

Finally the sirens reach an almost deafening level as they blare from right outside of my house. “What are they doing outside of our house”, I scream at my wife, in a frenzied terror, trying to be heard over the sirens screeching scream. “Did you call them?” I yelled at her, my face wild with fear! At this she looks at me with a frightened and confused look and then breaks down into tears, shaking her head violently from side to side. I push my chair away from the table and hurry towards the front window. Before I look out of the window I whip my face to meet the grandfather clock’s, 5:57 p.m. As my head turns from the clock back to the window, my heart is filled with dread.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do [Christian Style]

No matter who you are...skin color, gender, nationality, age...etc...you have been a hypocrite at some time in your life...

...the rest of us already know this about you...so you might as well look in the mirror and admit it yourself...take a deep breath and do it...

...didn't that feel good?...if not...just say it did with a smile and then repeat step one.

Christians can be notorious for the old "do as I say and not as I do"...this is due to the fact that we are sinners just like everyone else...and we should admit [confess] this...instead of trying to pretend that once we came to Jesus that somehow we became perfect...that day will come when we see Jesus face to face...but not before then.

Here is a hypocrisy I see in the church.

Jesus tells His people to preach the gospel to all nations!

The gospel message proclaims what Jesus has already done...Jesus has accomplished the work of salvation...its finished!

God became a man, lived a sinless life...and then as a innocent, perfect man...was willing to suffer and die as a substitute for anyone who was or is willing to trust in Him and follow Him...but the story isn't over...

...Jesus broke free from death's chains...proving He was the Sinless One...proving that God the Father accepted His sinless offering on behalf of His people...and proving that death had no lasting hold on Him...nor will it have a lasting hold on those who follow Jesus!

When we proclaim the gospel to others...we are saying "Go Jesus...and trust in Him for your salvation...the price for your sins has been paid...in Him!"

Because Jesus is the source of Life...and because the world is filled with obstacles that try and hinder people from coming to this source...Jesus focuses our attention to what it means to be His disciple...

Jesus tells us that if anyone wants to follow after Him...then He needs to put Jesus first...even over every other relationship in your life...your mom and dad, brothers and sisters, wife/husband, children...even your own life!

Jesus isn't playing games...He is telling us what is at stake...eternal life or death!

He is saying "I am God"..."I am salvation"...love your family...love yourself...but do not delude yourself into thinking that they are the source of life, happiness and blessings...the reason why they are any of these things...is because of what I did on the cross of Calvary!

Now here is the hypocrisy...we as Christians are willing to tell those outside the faith...that they should be willing to lay every other relationship aside...in order to come to Jesus!

We are NOT saying to lay them aside...but if it comes down to Jesus or anyone else...Jesus should win!

18 years ago, when I made this choice...it was extremely hard indeed! Having family totally think you are a freak...friends and associates totally misunderstanding you...and sometimes forsaking you...is extremely difficult...but God gives you the strength to press onward and upward!

But...how many Christians are willing to practice what they preach?!

How many Christians...when challenged with some of their "pet" beliefs...are not even willing to study books or articles that would teach them otherwise?

Why? Because they know that if they believed something different about "the end times", or about "baptism" or about some teaching from a different branch of Christianity...then their family would freak out...and life would become extremely difficult!

In the end...they are willing to tell the unbeliever...follow Jesus [The Truth]...even if it means hardship from every other relationship in your life...

...but they are not willing...to follow their [and Jesus'] own advice!