CLOCK HANDS (2)

Many years later, I was in gym class. I was 12 and always found a reason to sit on the bench instead of participating.

As we all cleaned up at the end of the period, I looked up at the big analog clock on the wall, safe from wayward basketballs behind its protective cage.

I’m not sure what made me look, since gym class always ended at the same time, but when I did, the clock hands were moving in the wrong direction.

It didn’t scare me– it didn’t even register as something familiar– I just pointed it out to my friend.

“We’re going back in time,” I said, gesturing to the clock.

“Ah, shit! I don’t wanna do math again,” my friend had said.

I laughed and moved on, but I had the clock dream again that night, for the first time in years.

It was much the same, but the amount of time I had been free from the nightmare made it seem worse now that it was happening again.

It’s odd how the dream still takes place in that living room even though I haven’t lived there in some years. It’s like my subconscious relies on this setting to scare me even further– make me feel like a little kid again.

Luckily, the version of the dream I have that night is one of the tamer ones; the one where the clock crashes to the floor and breaks.

I still wake up gasping.

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After their divorce, my parents were rarely seen in the same room – there was no reason for them to be.

When I was 14, though, they both attended my middle-school graduation.

I spent most of my time with my friends, all of us excitedly talking about how we’re finally going to high school. (I ended up hating high school with every fibre of my being, but we’ll get to that later.)

I won an award for writing that night. My parents were really proud of me.

After taking a bunch of photos with my friends, parents, siblings, grandparents, and even some classmates I didn’t like all that much, it was time to leave.

I stood alone in the mostly empty dance hall as I waited for my sister to finish up in the bathroom.

I didn’t have any pockets in my dress, so I couldn’t check my phone to see the time. I instead made my way over to the clock on the wall above the small stage.

The hands were moving backwards.

This did actually strike some fear in me this time– I think because I realized that it meant I was going to have that dream again tonight.

I almost wished my friend from gym class last year was with me to see, because she’d probably laugh it off as a coincidence, and I could, too.

[to be continued]