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.