Tic-Tock

Tic-tic-tic. 

The sound of the clock on the back wall was almost deafening despite it being almost twenty feet away from him. 

He glanced nervously at his watch and made sure his watch and the clock on the wall was tic-ing at the same time. When he noticed it didn't, he fixed it with a twitch of his cheek muscle. 

He started to shake his leg. The wait was excruciating.

People next to him were talking and laughing about some trip one person took but he couldn't focus on anything except the clock. It was moving too slowly. He had a sudden urge to grab the clock and change it himself.

He could hear the screech of the bus stopping at his bus stop outside and the train rattling loudly down from the subway. He could hear the honks of the cars outside of angry cab drivers and the frustrated screams of women who the cab drivers were yelling at. He could hear the footsteps of the tourists in the city going down the sidewalk and he could hear the crying of the babies in their cramped strollers. He could hear the sizzling of the hotdog stand and could almost hear the dripping of the ice cream the little boy was holding 

His leg started to shake harder and started to bite his nails.

The people surrounding him looked to him as if they asked a question but he couldn't hear it. They shrugged and turned back to their conversation. 

He started to click his pen. 

As if the sounds weren't enough, he could now smell the stale coffee that has been on that table probably since morning, and the smell of egg salad that was wafting towards him from the other room. He could smell the burst ink cartridge that was left in the garbage bin and the hand sanitizer that was overly used today. Something about a virus or something. He couldn't focus to fully understand. The smell that followed the big man from the restroom was almost putrid but he didn't care. He couldn't focus.

Tic-tic-tic.

The sound of the clock brought him back to the beginning. 

The windows weren't cleaned and were coated with dust. He could see the dust particles floating in the air, threatening to land on him. He blew them away. A small ant found its way inside and was crawling with a purpose towards the garbage bin next to him which had a sandwich probably from lunch. He watched it for a while.

Tic-tic-tic.

He hasn't stopped shaking his leg and started to click his pen more fervently. 

People were staring but he didn't notice. A small child sitting next to him grabbed his sleeve and asked him a question but he didn't understand. No, it wasn't that he didn't understand, he didn't hear. He was too busy counting. Waiting.

Even when his phone started to ring obsessively over and over again, he didn't hear. 

He started to pick at his nails. It was wet from when he was biting but he didn't notice. 

He did notice however when the child and his mother left. The child left behind his toy he was playing with. Yellow. Bright as a sunflower. Sunflowers, flowers tall and big. Like a tree. Tree's provide shade and rustle leaves when there is wind. Wind. It's blowing the lady's hair outside. 

Tic-tic-tic. 

The clock is definitely slower than his watch. He held in a frustrated groan as he fixed his watch again. 

The ant traveled from the bin with a hefty load. Maybe bread? Maybe ham? He watched it carry it all the way back to the door before turning back to the clock. 

The old lady beside him took the pen he was clicking up til now and gave him a nodding smile. He didn't notice the glares of the other people who were finally rid of the constant clicking sound. He didn't notice when another man yelled at him to calm down. But he was calm.

He groaned and bit the inside of his cheek. He winced when he tasted blood. 

His eyes went wide when the old lady next to him left. Maybe it was the clock.

The sounds of the clock on the wall and the sounds of his watch were overlapping, giving him a headache so he whipped off his watch and shoved it in his pant pocket. His eyes flickered from the clock to the world outside the dirty window.

He watched as the hotdog stand owner grilled ten sausages at once. He saw the sweat from his brow land onto the grill but didn't grimace. The man was old with wrinkles up and down his face. His mustache was short and dark, probably from the sweat. 

A lady walked down the street with high high heels that clacked on the pavement. 

Click-click-click. 

He could hear it. 

Her shoes were red like a firetruck and shiny like an apple. He didn't laugh when her heels caught in the holes of a manhole. He crossed his legs but it didn't stop the shaking.

The smell of the steakhouse next-door blew inside. While everyone's stomach growled in hunger, his didn't. He continued staring at the clock.

Despite taking off his watch, he still could hear the tic-ing. He folded and clutched his head and cracked his fingers. They all popped.

Tic-tic-tic.

The ant brought another friend. They both waddled over to the bin to go dumpster diving again. He watched for a while. 

He tapped his shoe on the floor and ignored the continuous glares of the people around him. They covered their ears.

He didn't have his pen anymore so he pulled out his watch again. He tried to ignore the tic-ing and played with the clasp. It clicked shut. He did it over and over again. He was okay until...

Tic-tic-tic. 

He noticed a bunch of pencils on a table near him. He laid them out and put them exactly 2.5 centimeters apart from each other. He gathered them again and did it again. He put them back in the tin they were in the first place and noticed they weren't the same height and scratched his head viciously. 

He stumbled but finally fished out his keys and hacked at the top of the tall pencils. He smiled. They were the same height now. He laid them out 2.5 centimeters again and sat back in his chair. 

He noticed a loose thread on the chair next to him and pulled it. It didn't snap. He tried pulling again and when it didn't snap again as he hoped, he grabbed his key and cut it. 

Tic-tic-tic.

He bit his nails again. 

Just as he was about to finally lose his mind, the black door opened to a woman.

"Mr. Golding? Dr. Haymich will see you now."