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.