11:11
In an effort to purge the last of his superstitions, Luke began to scream “VOID!” inside his own mind whenever he happened to glance at the time and saw that unfortunate alignment of numbers. He was afraid of dependence. He was afraid of the notion that his entire fate would hinge on his quickness, his ability to snatch those sixty seconds of wish-fullness and dream himself a brighter day.
There had been times when he would entertain this little game. He would tell himself he could say it once, wish for one sweet little thing and as long as he didn’t look at the time again or even begin to think ‘I wish…’ for a second chance, everything would be fine. It would be so easy to slip, for his thoughts to defect and before he knew it he’d brought the black plague back to England.
He was sat now, in the hall way. Cross-legged on the floor, staring up the grandfather clock standing against the opposite wall. It was coming in one minute. That brief moment in the night when all the rules were nixed, when the building blocks of reality were suspended and anything could happen if you couldn’t hold an unwavering grasp on your mind.
He’d been able to catch it every time for months now. Twice a day, eleven past eleven like clockwork. The trap had to be vanquished as it was sprung and tonight, he was ready. He began to count every second as it passed, his spirit steeling itself as the longest hand edged its way past the ‘2’ carved on the clock-face.
Any second, now. Any second and he would defeat it once more.
“Luke?” A soft voice. Footsteps descending the stairs.
He ignored her. He couldn’t be shaken now, not now, not now, not now.
He almost screamed as she took him by the chin and lifted his face upwards. “You’re a stupid little boy, why aren’t you in bed? You look like death!”
Luke stood up in a tangle of limbs and shoved her away with such violence that she collapsed onto the banister with a sickening cracking noise.
He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. In that moment, his eyes had flitted to the clock and widened with shock. He’d missed it, missed his only chance to win. They were already four seconds in, five, six, fifty-three more to go until they were free. He could feel it already, the stillness in the air, the latent invitation for all his desires.
He screamed, grasping fistfuls of hair and twisting as hard as he could. He was counting, back from a thousand, he was remembering the names of everyone he had ever known, he was wondering how many spiders were hiding in the nooks of their home, he was letting his mind unravel and reform it self over and over to stop it from forming true thought, to stop himself from giving in.
He mother took him by the wrist and he looked at her. A line of blood running down her face from where she’d grazed herself, the same look she always had, all pity and regret. “Luke, you have to stop this.”
She was a dowdy looking thing, with her night gown stretching around the midriff and what was left of her hair wrapped into a sad little bob.
“We both know the ticking of a clock doesn’t mean anything-”
He felt himself swaying back and forth, his eyes clouding with delirium.
tick.
“Just come to bed. Come to bed. Come to bed.”
tock.
Sometimes he wished he could drown endlessly, could feel the agony of the water violating his body for all eternity.
tick.
Her voice had become a faint whisper in the distance.
tock.
His head turned and it felt like churning lead.
tick,
The corners of his lips curled into a sneer.
tock.
The clock had struck well past the quarter of the hour. He was on the verge of hollering in revelry when the small clock hand clicked three times and whirled around, 180 degrees.
tick.
He almost bit his tongue out. The clock was broken and he had missed it. Tonight had been the night. Tonight it had finally given up and gone haywire but all this time he thought he’d been silencing this demon it had been dancing around him glee, laughing at his delusions of security.
tock.
It felt like the world was spinning. He ran, to the end of the hallway and out through the door, welcoming the night air. He didn’t know where he was going. He was never going to stop this thing. He stumbled, sharp stones and brambles tearing his feet open.
tick.
One wrong foot and he slipped, sprawled onto the mud and was thrown into the lake.
tock.
The water embraced him.
tick.
He struggled and he fought until the vigour left him and he lay still under the green murk, staring upwards. He could feel it, like fire, snaking its way into his lungs.
tock.
If his mother was standing on the river bank, searching through the muck, he would not have screamed for her.
tick.
He closed his eyes and began to count back from a billion.
Credited to Shingi
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