Just like Clockwork

The steady thrum of the waves rolling over the shoreline, the call of the mourning doves, the quiet beating of Adriana’s heart. Everything has a pulse, a rhythm, a methodical ticking that echoes through the world.

Adriana matches her breathing to this flow, listening to the quiet ticking within her own chest. She breathes in the crisp morning air, takes in the sight of the lake in front of her, and spreads her bare toes in the wet sand, feeling the temperature of the day begin to steadily climb.

Grounding, that is what people call this. Adriana prefers the term calibration. It is a good way to start the day, a good way to begin. Every clock needs calibration before it can run on time.

Adriana occasionally feels as though nature itself is a countdown, a clock beating towards its final second. Yet, this harmony is always there, a uniform piece of life that stays, making it dependable.

Adriana takes one last look, one last deep breath, as she studies the lake in front of her. The sun is just a small glow on the horizon this morning, nothing too grand yet, just enough to help guide her day.

She turns to leave. Work is waiting.

Adriana makes her way around to the front of her house, where her silver Honda Civic roars to life. A clock appears on her radio system as the car slowly jolts and rolls out of the laneway.

5:54am.

This clock doesn’t tick, doesn’t give any extent of measurement. This clock irritates her.

As she drives down the bare highway, the trees blow and Adriana hears their natural rhythm just like she hears the cadence of everything else. She takes a deep breath as she lowers her car window farther. Leaves rustle, and the wind howls around her.

She is less than ten minutes away when her phone rings, and it's as if someone has scratched a needle across vinyl on a record player. Adriana curls her shoulders in, disgusted by the noise.

Looking down she sees the caller ID read unknown caller, so she reaches over and hangs up without a thought.

She’s almost at work anyway.

The phone rings again. The ringing knocks her heartbeat off the rhythm she has been working to maintain all morning. Adriana hangs up again, not sparing a second thought. Whoever needs to talk to her will have to wait until after.

She drives on a few more miles, steadying her breathing and counting the beats of her heart. She's at five hundred and seventy-two when she pulls into the back parking lot of the diner, pulling her car up close and backing in so her trunk lines up with the back door.

The sun has still barely risen, and most people within a close radius are presumably fast asleep.

She checks her car's clock again, 6:15am.

Anytime now.

Just like clockwork, the door opens at 6:16am and Adriana moves her rear-view mirror to see a man holding a very full black garbage bag. She presses the trunk button on her car, and he absently throws the bag in. The plastic hits the trunk with a dull thud.

The man is not very old. A small patch of cropped facial hair covers his face, and his brown curls are trimmed short. His face has more lines than a man his age should have, as though time has not been kind to him. His eyes don’t express much. They never do. Adriana has only worked here a month, but she has seen this nameless man enough to see the consequences of time etched into a young face.

Adriana puts her hand up so he can see it through the rear-view, and he raises it back. No talking, no other acknowledgment. No one ever lingers. There is a change of hands, then next week a full envelope at her doorstep.

Adriana pulls out of the lot and drives back home, feeling steadier, lighter, despite not being done work yet. She likes this job. It is quiet. Predictable.

When she arrives home, she retrieves her toolbox from under the third step of her porch. She lives in a small cottage on the lakeside, well hidden by trees so she doesn’t get any painful annoyances during her job.

Adriana takes one breath for every step as she walks to the trunk of her car, hauling it open to reveal the black garbage bag. It doesn’t smell pleasant, but it does smell familiar, none of the others ever smell any better.

Like the silent clock on her car radio, the black bag in her trunk has no thrum, no melodic beat. This absence is good. It means everything is in order.

Adriana opens her toolbox to reveal her many tools. They are all spotless, just how she likes them. A few different-sized scalpels and drill bits, a hammer, and a several saws, all arranged in a way that suits someone who uses them often.

She grabs her pair of scissors from the top to begin cutting open the bag. The bag is layered, almost always four bags, sometimes five, so she must remove them all.

There is a stopwatch in her toolbox too, and Adriana grabs it, stuffing it into her back pocket as she turns it on.

Tick, tick, tick.

She works steadily, cutting through the bag layer by layer, second by second.

But something's not right. Like two musical notes out of harmony, Adriana senses a second rhythm in the bag, contrasting her stopwatch and slipping between the ticks.

She freezes and places her hand on top of the bag. Sure enough, a beat matches her touch. Up and down, faint and uneven, but undeniably there.

She hesitates, just for a moment, before deciding what to do. Keeping her hand on the bag, she presses again and notices it's warm, warmer than it should be.

Adriana has never worked with a bag that was still warm.

The bag shifts.

A beat passes.

Adriana reaches for her toolbox but freezes when she hears a phone ringing in her ears. The sound is sharp and terrible, like a needle dragging across vinyl. It sounds like a call from earlier. Something is not right.

She tries to push this feeling aside, blindly reaching to grab one of her tools.

Too late.

The bag rips open.

The plastic falls away to reveal a young face staring back with wide, green, terrified eyes. She is covered in patches of dark, drying red. Her left arm is twisted oddly behind her back, and her breathing comes in raspy, sharp, and uneven gasps, like she's struggling to chase air she cannot quite reach.

Adriana stares only a brief moment too long before reaching again for her hammer from her toolbox.

But the girl has a hammer too, and unfortunately for Adriana, this girl's clock ticks much faster than hers.

The girl hits unpleasantly hard.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five…

On and on they go, one after the other. Soon enough the blows form their own steady beat, pounding with a desperate thud. They don’t stop, they don’t slow, as if they are born from a mix of madness and resentment.

They keep coming.

How long?

Adriana doesn’t know.

Hours, minutes, possibly only seconds.

Has this girl ever used such a weapon before? The blows feel practiced, driven by a force only built through repetition. Adriana could almost chuckle, if her vocal cords still worked properly. She wonders if she looks like the girl does, if they are both matching in grotesque, colorful shades of crimson.

Adriana has always relied on the predictability of time, counting steps, counting breaths, hearing how many times the birds chirp. She trusts it to always be there, always accurate, always measurable.

Especially her own heartbeat, her most trustworthy source of time.

But as her heartbeat stumbles, skips, and slows, Adriana realizes how quickly a clock can run out of time. Is this what the girl felt as well? Perhaps this is what the others felt.

Eventually, the steady tick in her chest comes to an end.

Just like clockwork, it stops in a beat.