Clockety Clock (written in 2016)

 

   The forest was filled with the same two words repeatedly said.  “Clockety clock” and a laughter but not all the time, sometimes it was a sob, sometimes a high-pitched scream.  But there was never silence. Truthfully, I wish she wouldn’t stop talking because then I would be all by myself, waiting for her to come forward. And it will be sometime till I’ll see her figure. Till then, the only way I could pinpoint her was by sound and movement between the animals. From the lowest to the greatest, every form of life that can perform movement had been shacked from the core, anxiety and despair filled the air. No one was safe. 

 

   “Clockety clock” and the air went cold. The wind was tormenting the trees, crumbling leaves, taking birds up upon its arms, carrying it far away, far from their families, far from any chance of survival. Silence. And then laughter. The forest was shaking, afraid of what is to come. Nobody could move. Nobody had the audacity to do so.

   “Clockety clock” and nothing more. Nothing more than the crumbling leaves when her feet touched the ground. Then she stopped. The hedgehog stopped breathing. And then she started crying. An ugly one filled with sobs, screams and sniffles. Trembling rabbits were trying to run as fast as they could, but something kept them in place. 

 

   “Clockety clock” and there’s another voice. No, there were two voices, both shouting. They were coming close, indifferent or maybe unaware of what is about to happen. She stopped and listened. She began laughing loudly, but the two voices were louder as well. They did not know... Bones cracking filled the woods.

 

   “Clockety clock” and they stopped. Two boys sat in the only patch of light that could have been seen all day, night, week. They looked straight ahead with spastic movements of limbs. They could see her. Eyes glued on her. They couldn’t blink. They couldn’t shout. But they could move their arms, their hands and I knew that only when they pushed their fingers into their eyes, pulling the globes out, holding them by the nerves.

 

   “Clockety clock” and they started digging the earth with bare hands. She screamed. Life was still but for the two boys. Her steps were growing closer, the terror was growing deleterious. There was nothing to be seen. The boys finished digging.

 

   “Clockety clock” and they put their heads in the holes, pushing back the earth. They were just little trees. I could see her. White dress, nothing underneath, nothing on her feet. Her eyes were as white as her skin and she had not a single string of hair on her head, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. But she was so beautiful...

   “Clockety clock” that she could blind the sun by looking at it, she could change the rotation of the Earth by putting her palms on the ground. She began laughing again. The boys have fallen on one side, limbs were limp. There was no one to appreciate her beauty. She took the end of the noose around her neck in her hand.

 

   “Clockety clock” and she began climbing a tree from which you can easily see the two corpses. She was crying, but also laughing. Perhaps from the whole ridiculousness of the situation. The woods were silent. She knotted the rope around a branch and she let herself fall. She spasmed and fight all the way to the end. She was beautiful...

   “Clockety clock” and she gave her last breath. The woods were filled with sound again. A single tear was shed, falling in front of me. Life is the last resort when death can’t be achieved. 

 

   The boys were found after days since their death. They were decomposed and their eyes couldn’t be found anywhere. Nobody knew exactly if it were murder or suicide. Honestly, it was both and neither of them.

 

   The police found only two corpses.