I sit at my desk. It would have been quiet without the everlasting hum-buzz of my laptop fans working the best they can.

I take notice of the clock on the wall. Usually muted, insignificant, it quickly became the loudest sound I've ever heard. The incessant tick-tock of the seconds hand moving cut into my brain like a knife would cut into a cheese sandwich.

Time passed, and more time passed. How could I not count the seconds, when the cadence of time reverberated in my head?

I took a look at the window I opened to get more fresh air. Apparently, fresh air makes you feel more productive. The lines of meaninglessness I'm currently typing out are not a good testament to that fact.

I looked at the clock, and then the window. Clock. Window. Clock. Window.

A soft shatter awakes me from my stupor. I look down from my second-floor apartment and see the remains of my exasperation laid bare for the word to observe. I breathe whispers of gratitude. A few more minutes of the noise would have driven me to tinnitus.

I have been crowned the wielder of time, and time cannot slip from my grasp anymore, for I won't be aware when it does.

I did the important part.

I mentalized. I wound up the alarm clock, really tight. Then I winded up my arm and tossed the thing out the window (metaphorically) and listened to the swoosh of the atmosphere, the jolt of the pane, and subsequent granulation of the tempered glass, gust of incoming wind and sleet, and that anticipated kerplunk of the gadgetry on the asphalt.

In five minutes, I had every intention of drafting out the next great World class novel. Speed typing the outline, 500 words like for sure, and hell why not a thousand? But, my mind wandered. Waiting for the kerplunk that never arrived. I began to imagine a dutiful old timer by sheer fate glancing up and catching the meteoroid clock as if in a mitt at Toyama Stadium, during an ordinary shower, and looking up, winningly. With a squint. Gauging it was from the 13th floor and hoofing it up the stairs like a trooper, to tap on the door with urgency. "You lost something," and taking a small bow. Gone.

And I thought I had gained some freedom, some illusion of sparing myself the confines so that my mind could roam free in what turned out be a wildlife preserve. The window intact, the clock on battery, and running well over the allotted time. Analogue. Some words landed in type. But the concept escaped me. Nonsense. Caught in the throat.

I was a frog for a moment. Gulping the time flies.

01.06.2024

Time Flies challenge @AJAY9979

The clock struck 4, but you wanted more

Before the time flew past, and I everlast

Time passed, past, the bottom of the hour

And I watched it as my time with you became ever-so now'er

Who asked, who wants to know

The time it was an hour ago

Poised right here, stuck in place

On a people-mover pushing me ahead of your face

Another hour would give me the power

To choose viscerally, differently

But time marches on and even flies at times

But I circle your black hole making stationary rhymes

No clock, but we must collaborate. We're back at the position of the sun. Meet you at sun-overhead. Come back before dark. Fastest is done only by comparisons, not absolutes. No timer (except of course, for me, the writer). I predict that the first thing people would do if clocks and the idea of time were knocked out of their heads, would be to reinvent them. Sundials would appear within days. People would watch water drops, listen to bird song, sing themselves and coordinate singing. Drums would count time. Breaths. If numbers had vanished with clocks, people would start again with toes and fingers, hair would represent infinity.

"Eeeee!" I yelled in excitement as I was thrown by the carnival ride through a fake broken window, into a trampoline. To bad the lines to long. "Honey" I hear from down stairs "time for dinner" and now my break is over. My imaginative little girl boss who hates getting up to turn me off set me down on her mantle. Oh too bad. I silently sigh as she runs down the stairs.

She cannot take it anymore.

The analog clock hangs on a wall near her bedside, mocking her with the morning sun and haunting her with ominous lullabies at night.

The clock’s hands are always moving, incessantly reminding her of the passing of time, never giving her a moment’s rest. Oh, how she wishes she could pause it.

Time moves too quickly. It only allows her to look back at all the missed opportunities and wasted seconds. How can she enjoy the present when it’s gone in an instant, immediately joining her collection of past regrets?

She’s so tired of it.

Her downstairs neighbor must feel similarly. For he did not seem concerned, when she chucked that damned clock out the window.

I threw the clock out the window. It ticks and clicks in its unbearably accurate rhythm. I hear it. Everywhere I go it is there.

It is like that bad memory stuck in the back of your head which You wish would be gone. But still it clicks. It is screaming like a cacophony. Erupting in its harsh, on-time ticks. Even when I leave my house I hear it.

I imagine it. Counting down my time left. Begging for the time it misses a tick or click. Begging for the handles to stop twirling for life.

Begging for the batteries to run out.

Begging for my batteries to fall out.

When you throw a clock out the window, what really matters is whether the clock hits the ground. Let me explain. The say time flies. When you throw a clock, that it does. However, if you throw the clock out a window next to an anti-gravity pad, you may find that time ends up suspended. This is bad for you. When time is suspended, you can't do anything about it, because so are you. So if you want time to fly, make sure that you aren't in the vicinity of any gravity-negating devices before you launch your clock out the window. The problem, however, becomes that if time does not end up suspended, it ends up broken. Broken time is bad too. You could end up anywhere in the past, present, or future, on any timeline. Good luck with that. Maybe you should avoid throwing clocks out windows in future, just saying.

Author's note: this was slightly more than 5min. The concept was down within the 5min, but it needed some editing and a decent conclusion, so I kept going.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

It taunts me as it reminds me of its impending passage.

Its' sounds never bothered me before, but I was younger then, ignorant to its power.

I'd always thought I'd have more of it, but it grows louder...more ominous.

Tick Tock.Ticktock. Ticktock.

I wish to scream. A new year has arrived, but how?

How can it be here already when the former had barely arrived before exiting so hastily?

As though I blinked for one instant, and I became another year older without anything to show for it.

Ticktock, Ticktock, Ticktockticktock.

It's getting louder. Moving quicker than its predecessor already.

"Stop!" I shout.

"Please, if only for a moment. If only to allow me to catch my breath!" I beg.

Ticktocktockticktockticktock.

It plays with me as it smiles viciously at my rising panic.

I could swear the hands on the clock are dancing crazily, as I lose track of it and my sanity.

The room is spinning. This cannot be. I need more time. Just a little more to gather my thoughts... If only.

Ticktockticktockticktockticktockticktock.

I cannot take it anymore. I reach for the clock and rip it from the wall. I throw it to the ground and crush it beneath my feet. But it does not yield.

Ticktockticktockticktock.

I snatch the crushed clock, open the window, toss it out and immediately shut the window.

For a moment it is blissfully silent, silent enough to at last hear my own thoughts.

I take a sigh of relief as my panic begins to simmer, but just as I sit to rest for a stolen minute, I hear it again.

Tick tock. Ticktock. Ticktockticktock.

I scream.