Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > No Time
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 866 guests online and 7 members online |
Shorts
| print friendly version | |
| No Time | |
| By Bagheera | ||||||||||||||||
| 03 August 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
|
Thought this has a better chance of being read in Short Stories than in Non-fiction .... despite that, it is a true story ..... !! My entry for this month's "Lazy Writers" thread, loosely based on the 'Supernatural' theme suggested No Time Coming off the ferry late on a Sunday evening, they’d run into traffic, which didn’t exactly promise the best possible start to a much-needed and eagerly anticipated holiday. On the other hand, it was immediately obvious that the Home team had won, and Dublin’s victory over Limerick in the Hurling finals looked as if it would be celebrated long into the night. All the traffic seemed to be moving the same way as they wanted to go, and there really wasn’t any significant delay. “Can you imagine what it’d be like if we’d run into the crowds emptying out of Anfield – whatever the result?” Paul said, as the lights changed and everyone moved off with a minor tattoo of celebratory (non-aggressive) horn blasts. “Doesn’t bear thinking about!” agreed Kattja, his wife. Her opinion about football in general was below zero: what she thought of football’s so-called fans was unprintable. “Still,” she added, “... at least we’re moving, as you say. I can’t imagine what it must be like getting from A to B when they’re coming out of either football stadium at home!” Within five minutes, thanks to some strategically placed traffic light controls and roundabouts, they were suddenly looking at the N4 Westbound. Incredibly, the road was almost empty in both directions. “Where did everyone go?” asked 12-year-old Siobhàn from the back seat. Having lived all her life in either London or Liverpool, she had no real concept of what the term “the open road” might mean. “Probably either the pub, or the nearest burger bar!” Paul grinned, as he relaxed and settled himself comfortably for the longest bit of driving he intended to inflict upon himself for the next fortnight. In the land of Guinness, he had no intention of restricting his consumption once they arrived, but he was equally determined not to be sidetracked before reaching their eventual destination. Two hours ought to do it, he thought, glancing once more at the road map. The N4 they were already on passed through the village they were heading for, as near as made no difference. From habit, he glanced at his watch, frowned, and shook his wrist several times. “Damned thing must need a new battery!” he muttered, glancing at the dashboard clock. As he did so the digits obligingly changed to read 17:45, indicating that this clock at least was still ticking – not that there was any reason to suppose that this was likely to change. He looked again: his own watch had stopped about ten minutes earlier, showing just after five-thirty. “Tell you what, though: next time we stop, this is coming off! I’m tired of Still wearing a watchstrap on my wrist when I take a shower, maybe I can get a real ‘all over tan’ just for once ..... !” “Dad? Are you feeling alright?!” Paul’s obsession with time and timekeeping had become a family joke over the years, and he had been teased unmercifully about the similarities between himself and the obsessive headmaster portrayed by John Cleese in “Clockwise”. With a grand, exaggerated gesture, he wrestled briefly with the clasp on his watch, flinging it dramatically on the dashboard. “I’m on holiday! It’s the first real holiday we’ve had for ages, and I won’t be ruled by a bloody watch!” The look which passed between wife and daughter fairly dripped with the sentiment “Famous Last Words!” Mercifully, as far as harmony in the family was concerned, Paul failed to spot it. The main road through Meath, West Meath and Roscommon is well laid, but on a Sunday evening you could be forgiven for thinking that everyone else was either sitting down to a superb, sod-the-calories Sunday supper or sleeping off the effects of a surfeit of Sunday afternoon’s liquid lunch. The miles (now recorded as kilometres on Irish roadsigns) rolled by unopposed, but not without them all realising that the “Forty Shades of Green” in the old music-hall song is no exaggeration when describing the fields and woodlands of Ireland. Monday morning. Bright and clear, hot, dry, and promising to remain that way. “Blast! The lens has popped out of my specs frame!” “And we all know you’re as blind as the proverbial without them!” A quick word from the hostess at the guesthouse about her personal recommendation of which of the two opticians in the nearby town of Carrick to use, and the problem was solved. The assistant looked most offended when Paul asked her how much the job cost. “Enjoy your holiday, Sir: your good wife couldn’t enjoy herself properly if she can’t see where she’s going now, can she?” If there was a defining moment when Paul just might have replaced the battery in his watch, this was it. The thought, however, never even crossed his mind. He’d decided not to be a slave to his watch on holiday, and that was that. “Dad?” “Mmm?” “Why can’t we buy this red lemonade at home?” “Maybe if the English knew about it, they’d invade again to get some for themselves!” They sat on the banks of the Shannon overlooking the Marina. A leisurely picnic lunch had reached the “wash it down with a drop o’ the pure” stage, and for Paul and Kattja this meant Guinness instead of the unique Irish red lemonade. “Dad?” “Mmmm?” “You’re not going to believe this .... ” “So try me.” “My watch has stopped, too. It says eleven-thirty, and I only had a new battery in it just before we came away so it can’t be that .... !” No amount of tapping or shaking could persuade the offending instrument to resume its appointed function, and after a few minutes Siobhàn tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. “Perhaps Ireland’s a place where watches also go on holiday!” suggested Kattja. “In that case, remind me never to go to Switzerland on holiday!” Paul said, with a serious tone betrayed by the laughter in his eyes “ ... because there they’d probably work overtime, and you’d find yourself coming back before you’d had a chance to unpack!” By Wednesday – or maybe it was Thursday, none of them were really bothered by now – Kattja’s watch had also “gone on holiday”. The clock on the dashboard still seemed to work normally, and the ‘Home’ screen on their mobile phones still told the time, but really, as long as they kept track of what DAY it was, and didn’t miss the ferry back to Liverpool, the time of day became less and less important as the holiday unwound. As the last few days of the holiday approached, Paul sensed for the first time ever that time was not “running away from him”, which was a feeling he had always experienced towards the end of a holiday, when events seemed to crowd together and create a feeling of near-panic with the speed at which they seemed to approach, flash by, and recede into the far distance before he’d had the chance to appreciate and enjoy them. A final night of carousing and copious quantities of Guinness. Paul had gained a reputation as a good singer in the local, old-fashioned Thatch pub, a magnet for all the traditional musicians on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and it was approaching two o’clock before they made the short trip back to the guesthouse which had been their base for a fortnight. After less than four hours sleep, Paul felt as fit and well prepared for the early morning start and drive to the Dublin ferry as if he had slept an unbroken ten or twelve hours. The return, on a deserted N4 early on a Sunday morning, was if possible even more uneventful than the journey west. “Dad?” “Mmmm?” “If I say, ‘You’re not going to believe this’ once more, will you at least try?” Pushing aside the last “Full Irish Breakfast” he was likely to enjoy until the next time they visited the country, Paul sat back and nodded. For answer, Siobhàn mutely raised her left wrist. The second hand of her watch was sweeping round regularly, although the time it was showing was off by about six hours either way. “It just ... I don’t even know why I bothered putting it on this morning, but it definitely wasn’t working then. Now, it’s as if it suddenly decided ......... “ “Watches don’t have a brain, whatever Seiko might try to tell you in their adverts! And they certainly can’t suddenly ‘decide’ that now would be a good time to ...... !” “You’d better have a look at this.” Kattja’s voice was calm, but tinged with an odd nuance which Paul couldn’t quite place. Taking her proffered wrist, he gazed with disbelief at the second hand of her watch, moving smoothly around the dial. Taking his own watch from his pocket, Paul strapped it on. It was still reading just before six o’clock, which he realised would have been the approximate time when he ripped it off with such a dramatic gesture on the way to Roscommon. Without saying a word, the three family members grasped each others’ left wrist lightly, just below the watchstrap, concentrating on the dials. The digital readout on Siobhàn’s watch blurred, then faded, leaving two dots – a colon? – pulsing rhythmically in the centre of the screen. As they watched, in thunderstruck silence, the hour and minute hands on Paul’s and Kattja’s analogue displays stirred, and moved to join the second hand, static at the figure twelve on the dial. A gong sounded on the ship’s PA system: immediately, the second hands began to move on two of the three watches. The digital readout on Siobhàn’s resolved to 12:00;01 ..02 ... “Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. The time is now twelve noon, and lunch is being served in the P&O Restaurant ......... ”
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|