Clocks cry: stillness is a lie, my dear;
The wheels revolve, the universe keeps running.
(Proud you halt upon the spiral stair.)
- "To Eva Descending the Stair", Sylvia Plath.
One Friday evening, she was there. Out in the purple, watching the curtains staining themselves black, she waited. Occasionally you don't know what you're waiting for. This was one of those occasions. She felt a city was on her fingertips, but her knuckles were numb. Perhaps with cold - it was cold that night - but most likely with disconnection. Idly she rubbed her fingertips together, wanting to be a part of it. She felt like she was watching from a yellow window, observing all the dark people below.
The streetlights brushed lemon lights in imperfect semi-circles around her, but she stayed dark. And all around her silence pressed. Sometimes when she thought about it, she could hardly breathe. Tonight someone had taken more than their fair share of oxygen, and she was paying the price.
She glanced at her watch and had to squint to make out the hands. The night kept blotting and blotting and it was all she could do to make out her own fingernails. She sank to the hard ground and drew her knees up under her. The wind was playing up now, dragging weakness along. Holding her watch up to her ear, she listened to it tick. Once, twice, thrice. And again and again and again it clicked, never tiresome, never abandoning its crucial occupation. Around her nothing spoke but the wind. The night drew all traces of day inside it and gaoled them in a cell that would only unlock with the sun, no matter what madness was born.
Her watch was an ellipse. She noticed its dimensions as she watched it. Really, she didn't like it. Her mother had bought it for her, and deliberately left the price on the box. Two hundred dollars. That was the only reason her mother had liked it. Apparently it was "elegant" but looking at it now, she could only see its repulsiveness. It just kept ticking, ceaselessly. At first it was intriguing, almost beautiful, but now its glittering face was almost evil. How could it glitter in such dimness? She felt like unchaining it from her wrist and tossing it out across the road. She imagined it crunching under car tires, finally failing, its pulse faltering and silenced.
Her lips curled upwards. After all, where would she be without her watch?
Now in the maturing cold she rubbed her arm and caught sight of her rose tattoo. In the darkening street it almost glowed. Its redness made her smile, and she didn't know why. Its petals hung low, trying to climb off her white skin. It never could. Was she trapping it? Her fingertips kneaded the tattoo. Then a red shine bolted her eyes. A bead of liquid was wringing itself from her skin, and she started in surprise. It just kept inching its way out, specks turning to a stream. As it dripped down her arm she felt her heart thumping in her chest. Her blood kept running, her heart kept beating, her watch kept ticking, her rose stood still. The night around her watched, stiff and unmoving.
Still she waited. Now the stars popped into the sky, never in front of her eyes, always while she looked elsewhere. What is the story they tell? She couldn't figure it out. She looked for the constellations but couldn't make out a thing. Why was it the same each night? To those who could decode the language of the stars, anyway. Why did the stars follow the procedure? She frowned. It looked like a half-glowing, half-blackened mess to her. It wouldn't be long until the night rolled up its blinds and the stars packed together to be a sun. But now it was all still.
Somewhere above her in the trees that melted into the sky, a bird began to warble. A bird or two, maybe three or more, she couldn't tell. The shrill, cryptic calls were intercepted by the spy: her. It didn't matter. She couldn't understand a note. But the trills told her something anyway. That her skin was enough. If her skin could feel the songs of the birds, the blood of her veins, the tick of her watch, it could feel the congealed threads of yearning. Now every variation in tone above the trees spoke to her. And she kept still to listen.
Her eyes were drawn back to her watch. She stared at the hand as it circled again and again, encompassing the night. Shutting her eyes she gritted her teeth, she listened to the stillness. Stillness? She felt her blood leaking, her heart heaving, the wind scraping her tattoo, her watch tapping. The birds sang, the trees stirred and the wind swirled.
Her eyes opened. They saw her watch hesitate for a moment, then trudge on.
written: Friday 18th March 2005, 10:16pm.
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