Fiction

Tick, tock, I am moving. Revolving actually would be more accurate. Constantly revolving. Each tick, each tock a partial revolution, each one making a small change in the world.

I never move more than six degrees at a time, always in the same cyclical pattern. I’m not even a full radius, but I control all other movement. Were I to freeze, they would freeze, and those on the other side of the protective window would lose concept of their own movement.

Today I move rhythmically, but not all days are so. I remember one period of time, several thousand revolutions ago, when my movement was confined to a single six degree area. Trapped, unable to make the time pass, unable to provide sense of time to the world outside. Six degrees was infinity. Every second I would surge forward only to be grabbed by some unknown force that must be similar to what humans experience when they try to leave the earth, and I plunged back to the spot by the large seven where I began to experience this strange repetition. I don’t know how long I existed in this trap, for I quickly lost count, but I could tell the world around was quickly devolving into a chaotic sense of ignorance. With me rendered nearly motionless, they did not know how to function. Even in this state of entrapment I felt proud of my power, and I knew once I figured out how to move again in my proper pattern that I could truly show my omnipotence.

During this almost motionless period in my life, a period when I actually thought that perhaps I was dying, I became more observant of the world around me. Typically I had just watched everything pass by, not truly comprehending my power, not truly realizing what was occurring on the outside of my domed home. During my entire existence, I have always had two close friends, friends with which I have rendezvoused once every minute even if only for a second. On rare occasions, all three of us would convene at once, but mostly I knew my two friends individually. They were never as active as I have been, and their revolution pattern pales in comparison to mine, especially the short fat one. He moves about thirty degrees every time I move around that full circle three thousand six hundred times. For quite some time I found my friends to be lazy assholes, but eventually I began to notice that their movements correlated to mine, and this just built my confidence more.

It just so happens that the day or days I was trapped, my location was convenient with my other friend, the one of the same approximate height, although he happened to be quite a bit wider than me, perhaps even triple my width, but that surely can be attributed to his lack of motion. He may move a lot more than the fat one, but he certainly does not move as much as I. While this friend was less than twelve degrees away in the direction I was trying to go, my fat friend remained motionless far away from us, somewhere around the three it seemed from across the circle, but I could still feel that we were somehow connected. Neither of my friends moved at all, and no matter how much I tried to communicate, they remained mute and motionless. At this point I realized my friends were for the time being dead, and I had only the active world outside to follow. And so I watched with extreme curiosity, unable to look away, and in that time, however much it may have been, if it even had been time at all, I saw something nearly unspeakable.

Of course I can’t tell you when it happened, for I was frozen by that seven and my friends were frozen by numbers as well. It seemed unusual for many reasons. Typically the room was occupied by either no one or by ten or twelve individuals at once all sitting around a large oaken table, many of them looking bored. But on this particular occasion, there were only two of them. I had seen them both before. The one typically sat at the head of the table furthest away from me and frequently removed his looking glasses before criticizing the rest of the group. The other usually sat in the corner of the table, furthest away from the other but closest to me, yet the head man would have had a much better view of me despite the other’s proximity.

On this occasion, they did not report to their typical seats. The corner man, dressed in pleated slacks and a red cotton shirt with a collar, entered the room first, and about his face was a strange look as if he knew he didn’t belong in the room. I had never seen him alone in the room before, although I can’t honestly say that I am always focused on such unimportant things. The only man I had ever seen alone in this room was head man, and today was the first day I saw him wearing something other than a suit. He seemed casual, as if he didn’t really belong in this room at this time. When he entered second, his face suggested that neither of them should be there right now.

When the yelling started, I tried my best to keep mute like my two friends, tried to resist the temptation to plunge forward in some Sisyphean task, but I could not control my movements. My only hope was that the two arguing men could not hear my distorted tick-tocking through the glass. I tried also to look away, but there was nowhere else to look. The yelling grew louder, a shiny object was pulled out of the pleated khakis, and a bang that dwarfed even my loudest tick-tocking was uttered from the small object. The smoke hadn’t even cleared before the corner man had departed hastily from the room, leaving the head man alone just as I had seen him many times before. But this time he did not sit or stand, but instead his body was crumpled upon the floor, red liquid seeping out of his chest. His movements were so subtle that it seemed life had been mostly sucked out of his body. The door soon opened, corner man again standing there, the shiny object still held in an outstretched hand.

I feared for my life. Trapped in this dome, trapped in the same six degrees for eternity, and to make matters worse, I knew my life would soon expire at the hand of what had just made another expire. He must have seen me, and the only fathomable reason for his return was to snuff out the witness, even if I was already nearly dead. I cowered in that six degree sector knowing that he would make my movement stop for good.

But he didn’t. he left without touching me, leaving me hanging on the wall, leaving me in my entrapment to constantly relive the horror I had seen, leaving me alone with the lifeless oozing body lying beneath me. Desperately I tried to plunge forward, but move I could not. There was no escape. I could not stop, but I could not go on.

I soon grew weary, almost fainting, no longer able to try to fight whatever it was that obstructed me. I closed my eyes and began to sleep…

A bold hand reached up and removed my home from the wall. I am not sure if the sudden movement of the hand or the rough vibrations of my world being disturbed woke me. The hand looked eerily familiar, but it was all I could see. Was he going to kill me for good, to cease my gentle motion, to put me out of misery? Or would he return me to my pattern, clearing my world of obstruction? Or even better, would he set me free of this monotony and somehow keep me still alive in the process? Regardless of the impending answer, I had no fear, for nothing could be worse than what I had already experienced.

Quickly, the hand turned me to face the dull whiteness where I had rested, a scene I had never before seen. I hoped that I did not look that dull. The sight left me feeling plain and unimportant, just an insignificant wall hanging whose only purpose was to cover up the unsightly plainness of the wall beneath. The hand fiddled with the back of my home for several somethings, and with a final push, I could feel that this hand had freed me from my small sector. Immediately I began swinging around in my circular pattern, six glorious degrees at a time, swooping past each number, joining and leaving my nearly forgotten friends who again felt life as they also traversed at their own pace around the endless circle. A feeling of complete power swept through me as I swept around unobstructed. Before I had even made one full rotation, the hand returned me to the wall where I could once again observe the world, the world I once again controlled.

When the ten or eleven this time finally returned to that table, I knew what I had to do. Tick, I screamed, tock, I shouted, trying to alert the world of what I had seen, but those out there seemed only content that I was moving, paying no notice to my barely audible shouts. And like clockwork, when I hit that twelve for the sixtieth time since they entered, the man all departed, leaving me again alone with my two friends.

And so here I am, continuing to revolve, allowing time to always pass, allowing my friends to have their slight range of motion. In my movement I possess a terrifying secret that I am trying to announce to the world one tick-tock at a time.