The ancient face of the grandfather clock perched high upon the wall gaped back at her, glowing brilliantly as if illuminated by heavenly light. With each hushed tick of the minute hand, and with every passing second, the clock teased her, inching forward into the future, leaving behind an empty shell of a moment that failed to be extraordinary.
That was her biggest fear, being ordinary.
The long pendulum beneath the face of the clock rocked to and fro, tracing the same path it had been since the day of its birth. The metallic clanking sound it made as it reached either side of the glass case it lie within never changed. It remained, as always, to be a constant, low, solid tune. But now, as she stared harder into the face of the grandfather clock, it got louder and louder until there was an angry echo in her head, sound ricocheting off of her brain. The low clanking morphed into a shrill ring of laughter, reminding her that the tides of time never rest. She tore her gaze away with much difficulty while the ringing continued, sounding in her ears.
The cat lay in front of her, sprawled like a carpet across the wooden floor. His cold, steel colored coat of fur grew elegantly around his body. Each thin whisker, each curled eyelash, extended from a dark pore in his face, reaching far, far away. A bushel of white hair crept downwards from his fuzzy chin, merging into the hair on his belly. Her gaze met his and she watched in awe as his pupils narrowed into slender slits of question, restricting the sunlit glow that was pouring in through a nearby window from entering his eyes.
Small fluffs of dust danced in the celestial downpour of light. The tunnel of light extended further, smoothing over the cats back, enveloping him within its delightful glow; his dark coat of fur glazed over, each layer casting a dim shadow on the next. Her eyes trailed down the length of his tail and up again to his face where he opened his mouth in an overwhelming, gaping yawn. His ears flexed backwards, accelerating the shape of his face, and long sinister looking teeth were revealed, stretching out thin strands of saliva. A slender pink tongue protruded inches in front of him and the ridges on the roof of his mouth spanned deep into his exposed throat. And as quickly as it began, the yawn ended, and her gaze was broken, and the moment was over.
The cat’s nose twitched ever so slightly, and a small tremor originating from a hiccup shook his body. The world stood still otherwise.
But suddenly, it began to spin and her head felt heavy as the floor slowly rose up to meet the back of it; she lay down on the soft ground, gently fingering the woven tassels attached to the corner of the red carpet beneath her. The world around her continued to dance and she wondered, strangely, if her eyeballs were gliding around in their sockets to keep up. Life was on repeat while her mind saw the same sights over and over again, and her soul felt entrapped behind the steel bars of her mortal body.
A short moment continued, lasting for an eon, and she was dead. Stuck in purgatory? so she waited for the Almighty to summon and judge her. She had never been a pious girl, believing in God perhaps, yes, but certainly not in religion. Religion, she had once scoffed, that ridiculous fable, a book of rules invented by kings and tyrants and politicians used to control the enslaved. And that was when the tsunami of terror washed over her, gushing into her lungs and burning her insides. That she had been wrong during the course of her short life, she had underestimated and made mistakes, over and over again, until they were no longer mistakes, but were habits; and now she would be judged and thrown into the fire. Panic overwhelmed her, causing her eyeballs to pulse and her heart to throb, louder and harder until it could no longer be contained within her ribcage; it was now beating directly outside of her body, but she did not know how. Sweat poured from her forehead and she gasped for a breath that would not come, repeatedly, and she realized that this was her punishment. She had been judged and He had decided that she would be stuck in this moment forever, imprisoned within her frightened body, petrified, unable to escape the heartthrobs that slammed against her chest or the salty sweat that gradually drowned her.
She lay on the floor, scared and still, as if trapped at the bottom of a deep, stone well. An unusually dull chill, radiating from the core of her body, began to spread steadily throughout each limb. When it finished its course, it left her shivering, every hair on her body raised, and her insides feeling numb. The end of her journey began to dawn and although she did not know what came next, she lay motionless, waiting. Suddenly, far above her, from the soft light up ahead, she heard the solid, low tune once again. It was the familiar metallic clanking sound that reminded her of her living room, a safe haven, her sanctuary. The grandfather clock, still perched high on the wall watched, guarding over her as she voyaged through the depths of her own mind and soul.
As her living room carefully rematerialized before her, feeling began to return to her body. Her neurons were released and resumed their duty of picking up sensations to deliver to her brain. She noticed that her cheek was still pressed firmly against the padded floor, and her mouth lay slack, silent and parched.
The world stood still; not a sound, not a scurry. An eternity passed.
She checked the time; 4:22.
