The Old Clock

The Old Clock

The old clock chimed eight times. He hated that old clock and its incessant chiming. Every chime took another slice of his life. Time he would never get back.

They had stuck him in the back bedroom, where it was quiet. He hated the quiet and longed for the sounds of life. All he could hear in that room was silence and the smell of death. He felt like a prisoner, too sick to escape. Not that he hadn’t devised complex plans—he had many. His body, though, would not oblige, and he lay in that rented hospital bed to daydream and plot.

He had a TV and a remote, but the constant bad news and endless reruns gave him little reprieve from the monotony and loneliness of this prison. He was old and suffering from a multitude of ailments and degenerative diseases. His body was falling apart, but his mind remained sharp. He wondered whether that was more a curse than a blessing.

He often wished his brain were not so sharp. He wished his mind were muddled and confused like many his age, so he wouldn’t comprehend the horrors happening to his body. It was a horrible thing to be trapped in a frail, sick frame and be fully aware of the devastation that had destroyed his body and was now eating away at his soul.

The clock chimed again. The light from the window dimmed. Nighttime was near, and it was the time of day he hated most. The slight hope of the day gave way to the truth of the night—the realization that the number of days he had left was dwindling. Nights were long and sleepless. He would often lie awake for hours while the world around him slept. It only increased his sense of loneliness and isolation. His body ached, and the pain made sleep impossible. They had given him blue pills to help him sleep, but they did not work. They made him groggy and sick, and he refused to take them anymore.

They gave him red pills and pink ones and strange grey capsules. He lost track of how many he was taking and could not remember the reason he took them, although he was still sharp enough to name the maladies he had accumulated over the last ten years—maladies to which he had partially succumbed.

And this was his life, as much as one could call it a life.

They fed him mushy food to make it easier for him to chew. So many times, he had to imagine that what he was eating was something edible because most of the “food” had no taste, or if it did, it was a slightly foul one.

The clock struck nine. Those nine haunted chimes only reminded him how his life was being counted down by nurses, assistants, and a few doctors whose declining careers had led them to this dark abyss of human aging and suffering. He wanted so badly to close his eyes for good and leave this place forever. He had no purpose anymore. Each day he awoke, his only aim was to kill the time between naps, meals, and those humiliating sponge baths.

The clock chimed seven times.

Sunlight, partially hidden by dark curtains, poured through the tiny spaces in the fabric, signaling that another long day of nothingness, suffering, and boredom lay ahead.

His daughter, Barbara, called once a week—always promising visits that seldom came. The last time Barbara had visited was at Christmastime, more than five months ago. She had brought his granddaughter with her. The child seemed scared by the place where Grandpa lived.

He didn’t blame her.

Bart, his only son, had stopped calling months ago. He hadn’t heard from Bart for over a year; he couldn’t remember the last time his son had called. Bart had two children, Molly and Jimmy, whom he had seen only once when both were toddlers. Bart also had a wayward wife, whom the old man thought—slightly amused—that his son deserved. He couldn’t help feeling that way; Bart never even bothered to call.

Such was his life. Every day brought an endless stream of pills, boredom, and TV, measured sadistically by the chiming of the old clock. Youth seemed a hallucination now. Being young—raising kids with his wife, Cindy—felt like someone else’s dream. Cindy had died years ago when the kids were teenagers; she had suffered long and hard. Her death scarred them all for life.

Nothing was the same after that. The kids grew up and moved away to live the lives they chose—not that he ever approved of Bart’s semi-legal dalliances.

Life is not fair, he muttered. Most of the time, he just wanted to die. His legs had long since betrayed him. He could barely limp a few feet with a cane, and for any distance, he was confined to a wheelchair. He had a hard time controlling his bathroom urges; he found it easy to sleep at inappropriate times, but impossible to sleep at night. His eyes and ears were failing him, yet they continued to keep him alive.

Alive for what, he thought… Alive for what?

The oatmeal and blended apricots awaited; the old clock chimed eight times.