Father Time

Tick, tick, tick.

The first time I saw it, I was still rather young. It lured me with a smile, not unlike being offered candy from a van. Friendly and inviting, it sat with me each day and couldn't pass the days fast enough. I couldn’t wait for Christmas, and on each day of the advent calendar, the anticipation built. My brother and I waited with excitement, and when I finally noticed it watching me, it certainly didn’t scare me. I wanted it there with us immediately.

When summer was coming and the school year’s end was near, it felt far away, merely a comet flying through space that may or may not hit. I wasn’t sure if it would ever come and feared it wouldn't at all. Knowing what classes, we all would be in the next year eased all worries so we could focus on baseball games, swimming in the pool, and camping with my family’s friends. The sun warmed the classroom by heating the bricks; we felt like pizza cooking in an oven until we could get outside to play. I wanted it badly and watched for it daily, believing it was hiding on the edge of the property, in the treeline across the playground.

I learned about it in school and practiced using it at home. The dinner table welcomed it like a buddy who came over after school and would sit with me on the couch, eagerly waiting for each commercial to end and the shows to begin. We’d chomp on chips and slurp down soda together as friends would.

Tick, tick, tick.

It nagged at me and I perseverated, on a little date when I was fourteen. I couldn’t get away from it, like a bad sunburn in July. Each second passing took longer and longer as I waited for the moment to make a move. Her eye contact couldn’t hypnotize me; I couldn’t make a decision. It showed up and split into two. The consistent voice on my right shoulder told me to hurry up and do it already, while the one on the left suggested I wait. So I waited and wanted but passed up every opportunity. There was no solution to the persistent, prying feeling and never tried to kiss her. I worried she didn’t want it, that the timing was wrong, and I wouldn’t do it right. The one on the left shoulder won, but I didn’t feel good about it. Its polarizing ways paralyzed me, and I learned second chances were never the same as the first, if they’d come at all.

My dog died one day without any warning. It later curled up in my dog’s kennel, right where he would have just to remind me and showed up there completely out of the blue. I’d look around and see it inside when I wasn’t expecting it, catching me off guard. It reminded me I could do nothing but accept things would never be the same and nothing could replace him, There was no other way. Like a tamed beast, it would sit, but I could not completely trust it. Sometimes they could sneak up and bite when not expecting, that much I knew.

School days became longer as the years went on, and by the time I reached high school, they were dreadful and painful. Each day felt more important than the last, with events on campus, work schedules, and friendships concluding. We saw things like it in movies, and each moment needed to be perfect and used completely. The senior events and the school dance filled up the calendar, and we felt pressured to do it all. It would show up and pressure to do it all and do it right; I couldn’t miss a thing or else it would get upset.

As that final summer passed, each friend moved on to college, and this would never be the same as they once were. It would show up and replace them, offering comfort and distraction like a friend at a party pouring shots. Only wanting to help, it numbed everything in its orbit and hid the change happening under the surface of the moment, out of the moonlight and glow from the bonfire flames.

Tick, tick, tick.

It peered at me from around the corner, down the stairwell in the basement. Its teeth were sharper and threatening; I didn’t want to move another inch towards leaving. While overdue, the breakup wasn’t any easier to go through, and it felt like I was being dragged through spikes and then salt poured into the open wounds. I wanted it to be over, but I couldn’t get to the finish line. Rather than cheering me on, it watched and stared. It didn’t want to be my friend anymore; it wanted me to feel things I didn’t want to.

When my grandfather was in the hospital and we knew he wouldn’t get better, it grew exponentially in size. It filled the corner of the room and watched me try to sleep that night but was far too distracting. I had just talked to my grandfather a week or so earlier, and if I had known this day was coming, I may have talked longer and asked for stories from his younger years. But I hadn’t, and as I lay in bed, it leaned over me and reminded me how things were only going to get worse.

Looking at the garden, I realized I hadn’t taken care of it as well as I should have. I could have watered it more and pruned to force better growth but didn’t. We would have had more canned produce and home-cooked meals, but I’d eat more fast food instead. When I walked through the overgrown mess, it appeared from under the decay, pouring out over the ground and dispersed like insects, scrambling in every direction, covering what was once green and full of life.

Tick, tick, tick.

Bigger and bigger it grew, and faster it moved through the house with every burst of anger. It reminded me of every mistake I made constantly, and how I couldn’t erase them. It would tell me that my frustrations cause trauma, to include every last one.

It laughed at me as I noticed gray hair in the mirror, standing over my shoulder and pointing out others I hadn’t found yet. Saying its first words, it growled, “There are more where those came from, my friend.”

Every day in the news, tragedy struck good people and happy families. It would sit on the couch, not unlike when we were young and stuff its face full of the awful things happening in the world.

Tick, tick, tick.

It watched my kids grow older, which was against my will, but it didn’t care. It sharpened its fangs at its first opportunity to sink into them as it had the rest of the world.

Taunting me, it whispered while I tried to rest, “I’m inevitable. You can’t slow me down. I do what I want, and you will assuredly keep seeing me around.”