The ticking of the old decrepit clock stops momentarily as the rust covered gears
catch on one another. After an ominous silence, the gears shift and the repetitive sound
continues once again, echoing loudly throughout the large white room.
She sighs, a sound full of melancholy, regret and lost dreams as she glances
down at her pale hands that seem to be made up of just skin and bones, the veins
clearly visible through her transparent skin. Craning her neck to peer at the clock, she
winces as the action pulls unfamiliarly at the muscles in her neck. Just two more
minutes, she thinks, two more minutes until all of this is over. She had been waiting for
this moment since the day she had entered the hospital six months ago.
* * *
The local doctors she had been taken to see had been unable to diagnose the
cause of her condition. After being put through an innumerable number of unsuccessful
tests and treatments, her parents had decided to transfer her over to one of the best
health care facilities in America. March 28th marked the day she became known as a
medical enigma— no one had been able to figure out what was wrong with her; not
even the top physicians in the world. However, a few physicians had come up with
some treatments that would help prolong her life. Her parents had been overjoyed,
hopeful that the treatments would enable their daughter to recover both bodily and
mentally. She had not wanted to go through with the treatments, synonymous to ‘waste
of hard-earned money’ in her opinion. She knew that she was going to die, but she
didn’t have the heart to deny her parents the thread of hope they had been clinging on
to.
* * *
The sound of clacking shoes against the cold laminate floors increase in volume
as they near her room, interrupting her internal musing. She looks up, the muscles in
her eyes burning slightly at the sudden motion that turn them towards the transparent
glass frames making up her wall. Taking in the sight of her parents behind the windows
she sighs once again, not blaming them for their apparent inability to enter the room.
The hospital air suddenly turns into an unbearable, suffocating mass, denying them of
their ability to breathe. The ticking of the clock seems to slow.
Her mother’s shoulders shake as her back hunches over, curling into herself as
crystalline tears roll down her cheeks. Her father wraps his arms tightly around his wife
as he holds her against him in a futile attempt to shield her from the pain. His face is
stoic, mouth set in a grim line but it is not his face that catches her attention. His eyes
are tight and it is clear to her that he has not yet to accept what was about to happen.
A glass panel slides open and the doctor walks in slowly, solemnly as if walking
to the rhythm of her funeral march. This is it, she thinks as she glances down at her
body for the last time. Her rough and matted hair is spread out across her pillow. A red,
shiny scar sits diagonally on her once flawless face from her temple to the bottom of her
left ear. Her thin, frail body lies on the bed, both her left arm and leg still wrapped up in
heavy plaster casts. Her right arm is no longer there.
Glancing around the lonely room in the ICU wing, the room that had once been
filled with flowers and cards and balloons, the room she has come to call hers… The
doctor reaches her bedside and she looks down at her parents wistfully before turning away, smiling sadly as the clock hands cease their movements.
YOU ARE READING
The Clock
Short Story*** I wrote this when I was 15 or 16 and because I keep my promises, I'm uploading this because I made my English teacher cry (not because of the story. because I told a really lame joke).