Tick Tock of the Clock

The sun hid behind a slate-grey ocean of gargantuan clouds, casting the landscape in an ominous darkness more fitting for the middle of the night. Rows and rows of tattered houses stood, rigid and unmoving, as if they were holding their breath for something to come. 

I squinted at the soggy map I had haphazardly bought from the train station a minute before—three hundred metres until my destination. 

My midnight blue wristwatch began vibrating, signalling midday. I was running late for my appointment. 

As I hurried down the street as fast as my tired legs could carry me, my thoughts began drifting back to how I had gotten to where I was today. 

Sixteen years and fifty-three days ago, I was nothing more than a depressed high school student struggling to stay awake during the daily torture sessions conducted by the diabolical teachers. Life, at that time, was a ping-pong game between trying my best not to look like a loner and understanding (or at least, pretending to understand) the hieroglyphics that were our textbook. Why the government wanted me to waste thousands of hours rotting away in a sad excuse for a building that periodically caved into thunderstorms was one of the great mysteries of the world. 

In the middle of my epic daydream, a shrill voice shattered my serenity like glass. “Mr. Tim Riegel, what are you doing?”

Ms. Diabola, the military colonel who decided to take on the role of being my math teacher, was standing in front of me, brandishing a sword-like ruler five centimetres from my face. While it may once have been a flawless, beige instrument of oak, it had long deteriorated into the crumpled, bent, and greyed stick it was that day. 

“Um, what am I doing?” I whimpered. My hands turned clammy and my blood turned to ice, but I tried my best to steady my nerves and level Ms. Diabola’s gaze, which was a degree Celsius lower than the freezing point of water. “Of course, I’m listening to your lesson and taking down notes!”

Her lips curled into a cruel smirk, her nose wrinkled, and her piercing blue eyes narrowed. “Is that so? Then, will you tell me, what did Roden just say?”

Reflexively, I glanced at the lonely lump of secondhand clothes hunching in the corner. His back arched like a marvellous Victorian building, his two grimy hands were about as similar in shape as apples and oranges, and his unkempt, jet-black hair jutted over his eyes like a curtain. Roden was arguably the weirdest and strangest student in the entire school, whose unique appearance, radiation of poverty, and propensity to voluntarily answer the teachers’ questions made everyone repulsed by him more strongly than two North poles of magnets. The only possession he seemed to have, except for his tattered clothes and the plastic bag that served as his backpack, was a midnight blue watch, which was his grandmother’s only gift to him. 

I certainly did not like school, and I certainly liked Roden less. In what universe would I be paying attention to what he and Ms. Diabola were yammering about?

“Do I need to know?” I countered with a surge of confidence that graced me on occasions rarer than a solar eclipse. “Do I want to know?”

In less than the blink of an eye, the ruler explosively crashed down on my desk, making everyone jump out of their seats. 

“Mr. Tim Riegel, I’ve had enough of you,” she snarled through gritted teeth. “Detention. Now.”

Oddly enough, it was hardly the first time I had been forced to wallow in my self-pity at the rented kindergarten arts-and-crafts room that served as the high school detention centre. The only adult present in the room was a sleep-deprived senior in his eighties, who used his role as the detention supervisor as an excuse to catch up on missed sleep. As a result, detention, strangely, was a free-for-all party where the most notorious troublemakers across the grade gathered together. 

Unfortunately for me, on that day, Jason Hostin was there. 

Taller than buildings, more muscular than weightlifters, and crueler than the Devil, Jason’s primary source of entertainment was harassment of others. There had been cases of broken arms, scarred faces, and shattered phones thanks to him. 

His voracious eyes followed me as I entered the room. It was just the two of us in the room today, discounting the sleeping supervisor. 

“Look who’s here,” he purred, sounding like a lion ready to pounce on its prey. I guess I should’ve taken it as a sign to run away, but I didn’t. 

“Hello, idiot,” I replied, toying with the broken crayons on the table. 

He pounded his fist on the table, denting it. “You know, for someone who nearly got whipped by Ms. Diabola today, you sure have nerve to call me an idiot.” He rose slowly, striding over to me. His hands, which he rested on my shoulders, felt like claws. “Since the teachers are failing to teach you properly, perhaps I should.”

Starbursts of pain detonated as his fists pounded my arms and back. I tried to shriek in pain, but to no avail: his sweaty palms muffled my pleas, while he began cackling diabolically. 

“You’re no match for me, Tim,” he growled as I tried to squirm free. “I’ve pantsed, maimed, beaten up, and choked way stronger people than you. And the teachers never caught on!”

Before he could deal the final blow to my head, though, a voice called out. 

“Stop,” someone whispered. 

Fighting back my haze of confusion, I willed myself to focus on the figure standing in the doorway. Although I couldn’t make out his face, I noticed the midnight blue on his wrist and the black on his head. 

Jason burst out laughing. “Rodent? What brings you here today? Begging for food?”

“You’ll be the one begging if you don’t stop,” Roden warned, inching his way into the room. 

Jason seemed to find this hilarious. “And why’s that?”

Roden tapped on something, and a muffled voice filled the room: “I’ve pantsed, maimed, beaten up, and choked way stronger people than you…”

Fury flashed in his eyes. “You recorded it?”

Before he could lunge for the phone, Roden gesticulated dramatically at the screen. “It’s five seconds away from being sent to the principal. Make one more move and then you’re dead.”

Jason’s face morphed into horror. “No! Don’t…”

“Let him go,” Roden commanded. “And never bother him again.”

Jason tossed me over to Roden like a sack of potatoes. “Do what you want,” He sneered. 

As I made my way out of the classroom, I turned to Roden for the first time. “Thank you for that. But why’d you save me?”

Roden shrugged. “We have a saying, in my house, that treating everyone kindly is the only way to lead to a happy life and make friendships. Here,” he casually remarked, handing over his watch. “You can have it.”

“What?!” I gasped, aghast. “But it’s yours!”

“I don’t have that much longer left anyways,” he wheezed. “Sooner or later, I’m gone from cancer. I might as well use it to do good.”

I blinked, and I was back. I stared at the slab of ebony stone. A single shrivelled rose was placed on top of it. 

“Here lies Roden Nedor, 31,” the stone read. 

I knelt on the wet grass, and placed the watch under the gravestone's shadow, aligning it perfectly in the centre. 

“Thank you for being the only friend I had,” I whispered. 

I left.