Thoughts of pigeon, whilst perched upon pipe and enlightened by gas leak.
Time was important.
Well, as a segment of general relativity, time is often considered to be important; It is, depending on the perspective, a metaphysical anchor of progressive conscious that science hopes to be used in measurement of a day: thus, keeping clock makers away from the allure of an open window.
Time is, and technically was, important more so, because it was on this day that the exact essence of day was contained. Morning had passed–good, started well–and the fabric of reality would inevitability be allowed to squiggle its way onwards toward the orange afternoon: stopping when it needed to stop, skipping when it needed not to be noticed, and forever being marked by that familiar tick and obligatory following tock.
People liked time as it was, it was tangible, a thing that marched steadily forward and was filled with a modicum of certainty. It reminded people that there was still a future, it reminded them of their impending doom. No matter the weather there was always time, and sometimes it even aligned itself positively.
Heat deaths and the potential of a missed bus aside, the pendulum of fate rarely errs in its perambulation. It comprises most things and fills the cracks of what is doesn’t; and, if consulted, it would admit to preferring the swing of misfortune.
I should say that this day was importantly unnoteworthy.
A generalised whoomph of weight was felt to be released from the air as the resultant tension was eked out from each cranny could be said to boil an invisible egg, or at least make what comprised the following minutes to stand out like a piano being thrown from an opera pit.
So, with the instance that time was, in fact, very important, it should be taken for granted that an elevated sense of contentedness had been thrown over the day in the form of overcast clouds and a slight headwind. This was ‘things aren’t happening today’ weather, Autumn leaves tumbling down the street in flights of panic, the colours of verdancy each showing to be disinterested bystanders on a walk through the park. This was a weather that knew a sense of occasion, it was dressed comfortably and halted when it was tired.
A single post stood above the pavers of Balendup main square.
This was a lonely column of sickly nature that wilted under the pressure of being a mop amongst pikestaffs. It held aloft a tired clock and sighed as time seemed to avoid it.
Made by an idiot, the wayward construction of this clock’s design had prevented it from accurately displaying a correct time at any point of its life, and the spontaneous ringing of its bells could be heard often enough that it was considered charming by those who didn’t live close by.
It’s difficult to get rid of history and despite the best efforts of Balendup town council, the square’s clock had become historic enough that minor paperwork had prevented both its removal and its being fixed: the repairs of which would have involved changing every part that moved and moving every part that shouldn’t.
At 07:15 the clock struck 1:00.
The sheen of a misaligned sprinkler system gushed lashings of bore-water directly onto morning traffic as the routine of reality reached for its morning coffee.
Slipping upon the unfortunate kind of moss that only the down on their luck could seem to find, a mopey twenty-something was thrown into a flurry of movement and accidently managed to pirouette with a grace that momently threw them from musings of the apocalypse.
The clock had sounded the dirge of a single toll and announced that the morning had moved. This was the time of burgeoning afternoon; the dawn’s wisps had receded into slumber and the harmony of distant leaf blowers would quit their bleating from the parklands beyond. Soon the offices will open their doors and late-lunchers will descend into the cafes below. Walking dogs and terrified budgies will race through the park, avoiding owners by darting around Robina trees planted by a drunken horticulturist.
But of course, the clock was wrong.
Marla looked down at the pool of spilt milk and questioned if fate was conspiring against her. She had been late for tea one last time and the knowledge that she would forever owe a goodbye was hanging over her shoulders. Was spilt milk to be the last straw?
‘There has to be a way,’ Marla spoke to herself while watching her overturned carton slowly trickle milk toward the drain, ‘Time isn’t fair, something that can go unnoticed shouldn’t hurt so much for losing it.’
With dreams of sundering and the distortion of reality running through her mind, the amateur cultist took two goes at putting the milk carton into the park bin and set off towards the Balendup library. One last goodbye, the world could end for just one.
Small moments like these so often go unnoticed.
Whatever coiling repercussions of reality unwoven shall yet to leave themselves unfurled and I, your humble narrator, will sadly be unable notice them, for A pigeon is a happy bird but I do know that our lives are short.
Tonight, it seems that I am destined to fall asleep in a bin and dream of cities and a polis as yet unnamed, but tomorrow, well, that’s a story that time has already told.
J. McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 