Look at the clock. Your counting aren’t you?
Counting the seconds till this finishes, or till you can do something else.
When you’re sat, just quietly waiting, patiently allowing the seconds to wash over you like waves in the sea, each one moving you somewhere different. Your waiting, the sound of the clock
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Four seconds just passed.
And you’ll wait 56 more before one minute passes, then you’ll wait and other 59 minutes before an hour passes. Your always waiting. Waiting for something.
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Waiting, what are you waiting for exactly?
I know what I’m waiting for and I don’t want to know when the time comes.


Ill bet at some point in your life you’ve look at a clock and willed it to stop, willed it to freeze so you can savour a moment or delay a moment from happening. Don’t lie. I know you have.

“Mrs Collins?”
The man in the white coat was standing above me in with a look that told me everything. I had waited for almost 4 hours… or was it longer? I don’t know, I’ve watched the clock for so long now the numbers seem to taunt me and the clock even seemed to stop and go backwards.
That’s what I wanted.
For time to go backwards, before I had to be in the corridor in my local hospital, before Sarah was diagnosed with a tremor in her heart, before James passed away almost a year ago.
I wanted time to go back to when I was six years old and time seemed to free and the most I got hurt was falling from the bike I was learning to ride. I didn’t want to look at the clock to count the moments I would be in one place, I wanted to be in all places and not care what time my mommy had told me to come inside for supper.
“Mrs Collins?” this time I heard him,
“Yes, Dr Liberty?” He sat next to me on the orange plastic chairs in what was meant to be a family waiting room.
“Sarah’s surgery went well, were just waiting to see how well she’ll a just. The next 12 hours are crucial. But you may see her if you wish.” He placed a light and friendly hand on my shoulder, a sure sign of respect and sympathy. But I shook him off.
I walked toward where Sarah lay in her hospital bed, her golden curls feel in her face and her face was pale and ghostly looking. Her right arm had an IV drip attached to it, her mouth was crashed and the little bandage that covered the hole in her heart was visible through the horrid table cloth they made her wear. I knew Sarah wanted her Wonder Women PJ’s that she’d had since she was 2 but she was still small that now even at 5 she still fitted them like a little silk glove.
I stood in the door way, looking down on my little girl.
My little girl.
The clock in the room was ticking.
Tick
Tick
Tick
It would have to tick for quite awhile. The doctor had said 12 hour before my little girl was out of immediate danger. I knew I would be watching that clock till the Doctor came back to me and smiled and said: “Mrs Collins, Sarah will be fine.” Till that time, the clock would be my companion.
My bitter companion.
I crossed the room silently, afraid to wake her, her eyes were weak but I missed their innocent blue that sparkled and crinkled when she laughed. I smiled. Almost, the memory of me Sarah and James in the muddy bank of our house on summer days laughing as Sarah splashed water of us while we tried to catch her, James would put her on his shoulders and spin her round and I would panic about them falling but when he pulled me under his arms and Sarah lowed herself between us to join the hug I thought I knew in that moment that it would always be like that, I would always have the protective arm of my husband and my little girl would never grow up.
But James died. A car crash caused by a drunk driver, I had stood in court that day with Sarah. Sarah cried because I had and when we looked him in the eye he said sorry and when the judge had asked how Sarah was doing when she started screaming and crying, she had bravely answered: “That man made daddy leave me.” The man had started crying and that was all I wanted. Sarah never fully understood what had happened that day and maybe she never would but she understood what that man had done do her daddy, it was a few months after that she started to become ill that she was found to have a heart tremor, they said it was hereditary. James’s mother had had a heart problem and Sarah had inherited it, I was devastated. A long 6 months lay ahead of us as we waited for surgery to come round. Another moment in time I was constantly looking at the clock. My old friend.
“Mommy?” I spun round from staring at the clock. It had moved but a half turn round its cycle. My little girl, Sarah, was trying to sit up in her bed, I rushed to her silently.
“Don’t, baby girl.” I moved her curls from her brow.
“Mommy?”
“Yes darling?”
“Daddy broke my heart didn’t he?” I was surprised by her question, in some ways her father had broke her heart by giving passing on his disease or for leaving her. I didn’t know which she meant.
“No he didn’t darling.” She cried. She cried little gentle tears. In the time I held her, the room was silent except for the ticking.
Tick
Tick
Tick
And life goes on. Like the ticking off the clock.