Like Clockwork

This was a short cause and effect practice essay I had to write recently, it turned out kinda short, but I still think it has some potential.

Like Clockwork

(Cause & Effect)

     

      About seven years ago I awoke sick with a churning stomach, and a nasty cough. I was in eighth grade that year and it was also my first year back in the public school system. Even though I had faked quite a few sick days that year, this one was authentic. So I stayed home once again, in bed, laying there trying to sleep, but I couldn't. It was one of those miserable days when you feel like s**t, you can’t sleep it off, and no medicine can make you feel better. You just have to wait it out, toughen up and deal with it. That’s exactly what I was trying to do, but it wasn't working. I was home alone that day, my mother had gone out to run errands, and the rest of my siblings were at school. It was about 9 AM when I finally decided to roll out of bed and walk around like a corpse missing from a grave. As I stumbled into the kitchen, the only noise I could hear was the ticking of the clock on our wall. I sat down at one end of our dinner table and just dropped my head on the hard wooden surface. I was hungry, but I felt if I ate I would spew it out like the infectious zombie I was that morning.

     

     Minutes passed as I daydreamed in and out of my zombie-like state; still in the background was the ticking, the pendulum swinging, the clockwork turning, and time passing by. I lifted my head up, and from my point of view I could see the kitchen straight ahead, to my right a wall with a window that let us see who was on our front porch, and to my left was the living room, so still and empty, so quiet, except for the ticking of the clock that hung on the wall that divided the kitchen and the living room. From the end of the table where I was, I could see the clock. It faced me, and I stared at it for the longest time. One whole minute felt like an hour. My throat was burning, and I couldn't breathe through my nose. I just wanted the gravedigger to put me back in the ground. I dropped my head again, not knowing what else to do, still listening to the ticking of the clock while letting time slowly pass over me.

     I lifted my head once more and looked beyond the kitchen through the window over the sink to see plants growing outside. It was sunny, and it almost looked nice out; then to my left I looked through the living room and out the sliding glass door. The grass was a dark green, still wet from the morning dew and sprinklers. I could see part of our pool, and it was crystal clear, almost like a cyan gem reflecting the life that was outside, waiting for me to embrace it. It was about 10 AM at this point, in late spring. It wasn't more than 75 degrees outside, some of the windows in the house were open. I now realized this because of a slight breeze that blew through and sent chills up my back. How had I missed it?

     

     It was beautiful. Everything was so beautiful that day, and I was dead just because I was feeling a little under the weather. When I came out of my daze, I realized my eyes were locked onto the clock. The pendulum had put me into a sort of hypnotic state while I was contemplating everything that had been brought to my mind. Back and forth it went, never changing pace, never slowing or speeding, a tick for every tock and vice versa. Still watching the clock, I realized I had the option to change the course of that day. Though it was only one day in a million to come in my life, that day was the present, and therefore, the only day that mattered. I broke my stare, and stood. After shaking off the dizziness from the blood draining out of my head, I stepped into the living room; I walked to the sliding glass door, opened it, and stepped outside. The fresh air hit me like a baseball bat upside my head, splattering my zombie brains all over the back wall of our house, but it hadn't killed me; instead, I felt alive. I walked to the grass barefoot and felt how soft it was under my feet. I walked over to the pool and sat down with my legs in, cold, but so refreshing. The sky was littered with beautiful fluffy white clouds after the previous day’s wet weather, and today was still filled with the smell of rain. I lay back with my legs still in the pool and fell asleep.

     I don’t know why that clock was staring me down that day, of all days. We still have that clock, in fact, and it still ticks; and the pendulum still swings and the clock still sits on the wall that divides the kitchen from the living room. 

And still to this day, any time I hear the ticking of not just that clock, but any clock, or see the hands turning while time is passing by, I’m reminded of that day those years ago, that day when I awoke dead but found life again. I’m reminded of how that clock would have devoured my life had I sat there any longer, becoming more and more of a zombie; of how I had let so much time go not just that day, but all the days before, and how little time is given to us. Ultimately, those clocks remind me of what is probably the most beautiful day of my life thus far.