11 Seconds to Midnight

Eleven Seconds to Midnight copyright Jayne d'Arcy 2008 All rights reserved Eleven minutes ago it was eleven o’clock. My heart beat has counted each second. I ought to do something. Finish the book I was reading. Write a letter to my grandmother. What about my room? I could clean that. I’ve been so worried the last few weeks that it’s just an awful mess. I should do something! The quarter hour chimes dully, the deep tone jarring to the tiny bones within my ear. I cannot make myself move. The glass that I’ve held in my hand is now slippery with condensation from the melting ice cubes. Briefly I wonder if I’ll place it on the table near my elbow, or allow it to drop upon the fireplace hearth. A crash of thunder takes the question from my thoughts. Startled, my hand releases the glass and it shatters upon the slate of the hearth. Water splashes toward the fire and it sizzles to steam. A second crack of thunder, much harder than the first one, doesn’t provoke any reaction from me. Twenty-five minutes have passed. The clock is relentless and as I watch the second hand moving jerkily around its face, I have a sudden, irrational desire to take a burning log from the fireplace and set the time-keeper afire. It wouldn’t stop time, though. Nothing will. Roger is going to be the first to come home tomorrow. He has to go back to work in the afternoon, so he’ll be leaving the others to enjoy one more day out at the lake. I wish it wasn’t Roger that would come through the door first. He’s a cold man and his thought will be of the day of work he’ll be missing, not of me. Later he’ll think of me, but that will only come after the others are summoned back to the house. The half hour chimes, sinking deeply into my bones. I can no longer sit in this chair and I rise, uncertainly. I almost sit back down, but I now loathe doing so. Yet, where can I go? I wish I could run. I’m not as young as Jackie who runs everywhere, but I can still move as fast as my heart beats. I stride over to the parlor door, but catch my breath before I cross the threshold. There is no place to run. I cannot outrun this. Leaning against the wall, I look toward the clock just as three quarters of an hour makes itself known. I run now, but not to the outside, to the gardens, but back into the parlor. At the desk I wrench open the drawers until I have stationary, a quill. Opening the ink, I sit down as I dip the quill into the black depths of India. For a moment I hold the pen over the stationary and a rich, dark drop splashes upon the pristine surface. I must write something. An explanation. How can I word it so they’ll understand? What can I write that will not have Roger condemning my soul with an insulting imprecation of madness? I drop the quill. There is nothing I can write. No one would understand. The ticking of the clock is much louder now. I face it and watch as the last eleven seconds are brushed away by the second hand. Close behind it is the minute hand; both ready to join the hour hand. Ten, nine, eight… It is time to make peace, but I am still afraid. Five, four, three, two… I do not hear the full strike of midnight, only one chime. horror, original-story, spooky, stories