Time

The next morning found her standing at the bus stop. It had been about 10 minutes, but to T it seemed like an hour in the sweltering heat...It was a hot humid day in May when hot air rose from the street and the glare from windows of the cars stuck in traffic gleamed silver. She glanced at her watch again, it was 10:30 am again, the watch had stopped working yet again...She sighed in defeat, what's the deal with her and her watches, every single one of them would give up on her after a while....she was sick and tired of getting them repaired, for they would stop before long....She was wondering whether she ought to catch the train, she must have missed her bus...her thoughts were interrupted by the wails of the madwoman who lived on the pavement by the bus stop, she wasn't really in pain she just liked to curse at people passing by as she went about her chores, like chopping vegetables or cooking or cleaning, T could understand her misery, who would be happy living out on the street, living your live in front of strangers and in such heat!!! But she couldn't really sympathize with the woman now when she was screaming obscenities at everyone on the street...Suddenly she spotted a red blur about a few feet away from her, she hadn't missed her bus after all....

Travelling to work had never been very interesting somehow for T (though the air conditioning inside was a big relief from the heat), she listened to the radio and stared out as images kept flashing by her window. She never had any real conversation with her fellow travelers, everyone seemed to her like they belonged to an army of drones...so she was surprised when a man with graying hair at the temples sitting right behind her asked her what time it was, she couldn't hear him at first, but he made sure she did, by tapping on her shoulder to catch her attention. She was at first a little flabbergasted as she glanced her watch to realize once again that time had stopped at 10:30 am for her, she smiled sheepishly at him, “I am so sorry my watch has stopped, I'll take it off...” she added almost to herself fumbling at her catch of the watch, the man smiled back at her, “Time has never been my friend as well, don't worry...”, she smiled feeling uncomfortable, what an odd thing to say! She frowned, putting away her wrist watch for good, she hugged her backpack to her chest and settled herself in the seat, “When did you first notice?”, the man was looking at her with a curious expression, “Excuse me?” she couldn't help being curt, pulling the headphone out of her right ear, what did he mean? He looked piercingly into her eyes, “When did you first notice there was something wrong with time?”, T was completely taken aback, what a psycho! “I am sure I don't know what you mean...my watch stopped working this morning”, she shrugged her shoulders. He seemed satisfied with what she said, and relaxed back in his seat. She sighed, maybe it was the heat, driving people crazy, mad women on the streets screaming and mad men inside the bus asking god knows what! T forgot about the man as she listened to Cindi Lauper softly singing,

“Then you say - go slow,

I fall behind -The second hand unwinds...”

It almost took an hour for her to reach her destination, getting out in the heat was quite a daunting task, she took out her umbrella as she got down the bus. When the bus passed her by she saw the man with graying hair at his temples staring at her through the glass, she looked away feeling uneasy, what was that all about? Her phone started ringing, she glanced at the number, couldn't recognize it, decided to let it ring...enough talking to strangers for a day! 

She didn't have much to do at work. It was a long tedious day, everyone went about their business as usual....it was much later that afternoon when she was hit with the same bizarre feeling she had been feeling for quite sometime now...looking at the series of tube lights down the corridor as she was filling her water bottle from the cooler everything seemed unreal somehow, as if floating in mid air....she shook her head, maybe she was feeling dizzy because of the mid day heat...she could hear the clock ticking the seconds away on the wall facing her...it was a strange moment, suspended in time when nothing seemed real...and then it was gone, like a faint spell of dizziness....her phone started ringing again, it was the same unknown number, she frowned at the screen, didn't pick up again...She left a bit early that day, thought of repairing her watch again...the shop was just across the street near her office, in fact she got most of her watches from that particular show room itself, but these days she spent more time on repair jobs than anything else...she often thought of buying a new watch, one with the latest design and all, lovely and sleek but never got around to buying one. The woman at the counter knew T quite well, she smiled at her and raised her eyebrows, “you want to repair it again?, T smiled wistfully, “Well..I don't know what else to do!”. She went ahead with the paper work putting the faulty piece of machinery in a plastic container, asking T to wait....T sat herself on the couch thinking why didn't she buy herself a new watch? What was so hard about breaking routine? In recent times, all her days seemed the same, all merging into the same shapeless mass, there seemed to be the disturbing undercurrent of things being meaningless, unreal...What if the man on the bus, the mad woman on the street were the anomalies in the otherwise perfect mundane system, anomalies which disrupted the smooth nothingness that her life had become...The woman at the counter was calling her name, T seemed shaken by the trail of her thoughts...

“How much?” T asked reaching for her watch, “No charges my dear.” The woman smiled at her sadly, “Some things can't be fixed.” T stared at her, what did she mean? She mumbled her thanks and went on her back home. The evening was much cooler, a gentle breeze soothed her prickly nerves...the city enjoyed a brief spell of respite from the heat, although the next day would be as hot as it was today and the day after would be the same....a repetitive cycle that she seemed to caught in, like a glitch in time....She couldn't shake this thought that something seemed off with her world lately, something was not quite right....She went to bed that night trying to make sense of it all but her brain was too tired to function and soon she was fading into the darkness....

The next morning found her standing at the bus stop...It had been about 10 minutes, but to T it seemed like an hour in the sweltering heat...It was a hot humid day in May when hot air rose from the street and the glare from windows of the cars stuck in traffic gleamed silver. She glanced at her watch again, it was 10:30 am again, the watch had stopped working yet again...She sighed in defeat, what's the deal with her and her watches, every single one of them would give up on her after a while....she was sick and tired of getting them repaired, for they would stop before long....

“If you're lost you can look - and you will find me

Time after time
If you fall I will catch you - I'll be waiting
Time after time....
Time after time
Time after time
Time after time....

...Time after time"