The Saint's Lips

Chapter One

The concept of time has always perplexed and bewildered me. The idea that time is all that controls two people from being together, that it dictates when and where you will be, and if you will live or die. Timing has always been the very delicate key to life's inherent treasure chest.

I heard once that a woman forgot her keys on the morning of her route to work in New York City on September 11th 2001. I heard she had to go back into her house and when she still couldn't find them, she was frustrated simply because she had fallen behind schedule. This schedule, dictated by time, told her she would be late. I heard a man didn't hear his alarm clock and instead of rushing, he decided he might as well be very late that morning. He chose to, on that fateful day, free himself from the shackles of the ticking clock. I heard another man couldn't get a taxi, and had to wait a few minutes later than he normally would have. Time dictated, on that very morning, who lived and who died. What seems unfair is that those who adhered to the cultural norm, who were punctual and arrived on time, those were the ones who lost their lives. When the World Trade Center collapsed, time became the only thing that could save your life.

So this is my theory: time is the only concept that we cannot live without. If you can live your life without once looking at a clock, or feeling anxiety build inside the pit of your stomach solely based on flashing numbers, then perhaps you have successfully broken the norm. Whether we like it or not, we're all constantly obsessed with time. I would even go as far as to say that we are simply slaves to it.

I've been watching my clock tick for three years. I've watched as the seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours, turned to days, turned to months, and soon turned to the years I had wasted watching. Even though I live in one of the luxurious estates in California, I feel attached to the east coast in a way that I can't really explain. It's like a world I haven't yet explored, where places like New York City blend concrete jungles into the nature of Central Park, and then into rustic and abandoned alleyways.

My heart has learned to beat in synchronization with the seconds that tick on the grandfather clock next to my father's bed. The ticking is drowned out by the beeping of his heart rate that shows up on the monitor next to him. Every beep, every tick, every second that passes is another reminder that I really am a slave to the clock. Not that I had much of a choice anyway.

My father has been a slave to a different kind of disease, one that can be monitored and measured and studied. His sickness built like a slow growing parasite, until the day it finally decided to expose itself in the form of lung cancer. My father collapsed in the driveway of his own house, and it became the day I like to call Time's Bitch. I remember my mother's high-pitched screams and frantic call for help. When I heard her, I rushed outside to find my once strong dad, crippled into an unconscious heap on the concrete driveway. Since then, it's been nothing but hospitals and doctors who use big words that sound like they're choking instead of making a diagnosis.

Sometimes I'm glad that I'm the only child. It minimalizes the casualties of my father's imminent death. Unfortunately, since Time's Bitch, he has been nothing but terminal. The doctors could measure his time, his life summed up into the ticking of the grandfather clock. They decided it would be a maximum of six months before he finally bit it. It's not that I'm insensitive to death, although 'bit it' might be a less polite way of putting it. I've just become obsessed with watching the time pass as I sit in the reading chair across from his king sized bed. After all, his deadline was over two years ago.

My mother couldn't handle it. As much as I've always been closer with my dad, I still imagined that my mom would rise to the occasion... or something of that sort. Needless to say that she didn't. Instead she went in search of a release from the pain. In so many ways, I can't blame her. My parents had one of those rare relationships that I think was truly meant to last. With the amount of divorces and family issues that plague or generation, I think time was just jealous. It couldn't fathom a world where two people lived "happily ever after", and so decided to make us even more of a slave to its ticking needles.

My mom didn't exactly leave us here alone at least. She's just a rare appearance at the house. Most of the time I think she's out in bars, drinking and smoking in the hopes that the pain may subside. Sometimes I think she smokes wishing that she'll fall ill to the same lung cancer, and somehow join my father in his death. Either way, it's usually just my dad and I. The large house isn't always empty though. We have a maid that I've known since I was a baby, and she's practically like a second mother to me. Then there are all the nurses who rush in and out of the house on a daily basis.

After a few hours of pondering the concepts of time, and thinking back on my nonexistent mother, I head to my own room. It's not your typical "teenage girl" room. I don't have pictures plastered all over the walls of all the good times I've had with my friends. That's mainly because I only have a small circle of them, but I've never been able to go anywhere outside of school in their company. It's not so much of an imprisonment as a choice. I can't bare the thought of leaving my father anymore. It could be any minute that the heart monitor goes dead, and takes the life of a caring man with it.

To brush off the doom and gloom of every day I use one simple coping mechanism. Baths. I have an adjoined bathroom and I make my way across the wooden flooring now, passed my double bed, and into the marble bathroom. I can't deny that I'm lucky in so many other ways. Despite having a dying father, a mother who's lost her way, I at least don't have to worry about financial stress. Ironically enough, my dad actually worked as a doctor before passing out to the illness he'd for so many years pondered over. Although he wasn't technically involved with cancer patients, he usually volunteered to do anything he could to help. I could tell that he was working on a cure; he was pretty obsessed with it. It has crossed my mind that his obsession stemmed from the prior knowledge of his illness, and selfishly never seemed to have told anyone. Time's Bitch was too late, and even chemotherapy was a waste at that stage.

I turn the tap on to its hottest temperature and allow the bath to slowly fill up with steaming water. I let my sweaty clothes drop to the floor, and I eye myself in the mirror. I haven't worn makeup all summer, not that I really needed to since I wasn't seeing anyone outside of the estate. My long brown hair pools in waves at the ends and cascades down my face in messy curls. I poke at my chubby cheeks and then prod at my thick eyebrows. The green tint to my eyes falters as the steam begins to accumulate in the bathroom, and soon my entire olive toned skin looks like a ghost.

The moment my feet hit the steaming bath water, I forget everything and my body conforms to every inch of the heat. All of my muscles relax, and every tendon loosens itself as a response to the bath. It's only in these moments where I can be excited for things, and wonder about what people might call "normal stuff". I think about seeing my best friend as well as my entire group of guy friends. Senior year starts tomorrow, and I'm convinced that it'll be different. Unlike every other year, I'm not going to let schoolwork envelop my schedule, and I'm hoping that I'll even get the chance to go out.

"Ava! Ava where are you?"

The thick Slovenian accent of my maid, turned second mother, Loretta, forces me to spring out of the bathtub in a matter of seconds. I wrap a white towel around my body and rush into the hallway to see where she is.

"What? I'm right here! Is everything okay?" I ask frantically until I spot her face looking up at me from the main floor. Our hallways allow for a gap in the middle where the chandelier hangs, and therefore opens up to the main foyer.

"No no, do not worry. I was wondering if you were all ready for school tomorrow?"

She looks upset that she worried me unnecessarily, but I can't think of anything else as I relax my shoulders that had already built up with tension.

"I'm completely ready, Loretta." I tell her through a sigh and then motion that I'm going to continue my bath.

"Okay darling, be safe tomorrow morning. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!" I yell back as I close the crack in my door, and make my way back into the still steaming hot water.

Tomorrow. I just have to watch the clock a little longer; tomorrow is only a few short hours away.

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