When the daylight has faded

Mr Time (#time, water)

Mr Time wasn't the personable type, but at least he was predictable.

As a kid, I listened to his footsteps with awe. I never actually saw the man, but his footfall was even and deliberate. He paced outside my bedroom window with steely boots, braving wind and weather. One, two, three steps to the right; then three equally-spaced steps to the left.

He never looked in on me, but his presence was reassuring. His thumps promised new dawns, and his relentlessness lulled me into dreams about a life bursting with flavour and colours.

I did not realise at the time that the dough in the mould was already beginning to set because Mr Time wasn't kind enough to warn me that adding new flavours to the dough was becoming impossible fast.

Mr Time was heartbeat, not advice.

Only at Christmas he began to drag his feet, that mean faceless man whose footsteps ruled my life. I shouted at him to get a move on, to start running. Why would he slow down on that one particular day every year? He never answered this question but even this anomaly became a constant whose predictability I learned to appreciate.

Anticipation is the thrill, the fun and the enjoyment after all.

With his sneaky methods, Mr Time had thus lulled me into a false feeling of calcium carbonate-rich water dripping endlessly to form the most beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. I did not notice anything as he sped up his pacing in such minuscule increments that dreamland was still easily found between each one of his steps.

But while Mr Time had hitherto let me experience mainly his unhurried, even gait, he now started to play games. He'd suddenly limp along when things were dark, dragging his feet the more the bleaker life was. When I was enjoying myself, he'd suddenly turn into Usain Bolt, kicking up smoke outside my window, blurring my path. When I was enjoying myself much too much, he'd sometimes walk on stockinged feet, only to hobble like an old man on crutches, when my gritty eyes opened to the inside of a toilet bowl.

He must have loved those days in which his feet were keeping me on or knocking me off my toes.

Well, he has stopped playing now. The last few years, he's been running full pelt constantly, never taking a minute to relax, his feet causing shifts in my world's tectonic plates that have kept me from finding dreamland. The closest I come to this beautiful place now is when my exhausted mind gives up and takes me away from the earthquakes to show me memories of a distant past in which life's dough was still malleable.

But just now, he must have stumbled. I heard a crash outside my window and now there is only quiet. For a second, I see myself as if a giant mirror had suddenly appeared above me. One of my eyes is crinkled and clear, the other watery and cloudy.

I hear Mr Time struggling to heave himself up off the floor. Breathing is becoming a luxury.

He must have succeeded because I can hear his steps again, but for the first time in my life they seem to carry on walking, away from my window. Finally, they fade. My lungs squeeze out air for a final time before perfect darkness engulfs me.