The girl is bored. It’s the worst when it rains outside and she’s not allowed to go into the garden. It’s not even a pretty garden and there’s nothing to play with - even the dog is old and he only wakes up when it’s time to eat. Still, it’s better than being stuck in this room, with the heavy wardrobes towering over her and the creaking floor, barely covered by the threadbare carpet . The slightest step of her bare feet could wake up the old woman dozing in the ancient armchair and she definitely doesn’t want to do that. When she’s awake, Aunt Martha feels it’s her duty to entertain the girl, talking and talking, endless stories of ancient times and ancient people the girl has never met. The old woman is hard of hearing and her trick is never to ask questions she cannot understand the answers, so she stares intently at the people she talks to and babbles on without the slightest pause. And Chrissie is left there, a prisoner in the slightly wobbly chair, nodding and smiling at the appropriate times of the dusty monologue she’s not even listening to.
Better stay put and let the old woman sleep. Anyway, it won’t be long until mother will come to take her home. The grandfather clock says it’s almost five now - not much left if there isn’t much traffic.
In the two months of her summer vacation she’s been forced to spend with this so-called aunt, Chrissie has come up with all sorts of little games and strategies to will the clock go faster. Sometimes, she closes her eyes and counts to one hundred - real slow. If she takes her time she can make even five minutes go by before she’s done. She’s tried going over the multiplication tables in her mind - but this doesn’t work as she is used of saying them too fast. Barely two minutes! She’s even tried reading, but there are only two books on the old night-table - one in German and the other ‘Lives of famous opera singers’. She’s never been to the Opera herself and anyway the people in the book are long dead, still she’s read it all and now it is useless as she already knows all the stories and she cannot focus anymore and her eyes keep darting back to the clock’s hands and they’re so slow it makes her want to cry. Sometimes she wonders what would happen to her if the clock simply stopped. It could happen, it’s so very old - it could break any time and she’d be stuck in here forever. Aunt Martha told her to be very careful not to touch her clock, even though it’s too high for the little girl. And she doesn’t like to go near it, as the dresser beneath it smells funny, because of all the pills Aunt Martha keeps in the drawers. She’s never told that to anyone but she’s been through the drawers once, when Aunt Martha was in the kitchen making tea. But there was nothing of interest to a little girl in there - nothing but old people stuff, pills and old bills, a random assortment of buttons, pins, a broken pair of glasses, an empty bottle of perfume, the old woman sometimes takes out and dabs her earlobes.
The clock strikes six and the noise wakes her up. Usually, it takes her a minute or two to take everything in and remember where she is or who she is.
‘Your Mom will be here any minute now’, she says with a smile and she straightens her dress and passes a hand through her thin short hair. The old woman has no intention to be caught sleeping on the job so she hurries to the kitchen coming back with a cup of coffee for Mom and some biscuits for Chrissie.
Mom really doesn’t care for the coffee, she’s just too grateful this great-aunt of hers was kind enough to take care of her little girl while she’s at work. She always brings the old lady a little treat - liquor-filled chocolates are her favorites.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have’, aunt Martha says and she’s not even lying.
She’s happy to have someone to talk to and she’s come to welcome the moment the old clock strikes eight in the morning and she knows Chrissie would be there any minute now. Someone still needs her. Her time has not come.
Story written for
's freewrite challenge, the prompt was: describe a clock! Check out her blog and join our freewrite community.
Thanks for reading!
Image: Pixabay