They Call Me, Time.

Sometimes he loved me, wishing nothing more than to hold me still and keep me for a moment, losing himself inside dreams of where we would go together. Though I often fluttered away from him, flitting just out of grasp like the swift mouse evading the ever-agile house cat. He glanced at me, studying my movements in anticipation, willing me to move faster than I could muster; still I carried on regardless of his gaze, undaunted by his anticipation. In that moment he hated me, listless and waiting as if that were any fault of my own, still I danced around him, around everyone, in my own world.

The tension in the room, the friction between us growing with every passing second, his gaze left me, though briefly, to check the door at the other end of the room. Faint beeping from heart monitors down the hall echoed into the empty chasm of a waiting room, that now, only him and I occupy. Though it’s just us two in the room, it seems near capacity with the palpable strain our relationship stifling the distance between us. Muffled murmurs and hushed whispers of conversation wafting through thin drawn hospital curtains are the only evidence that other people are in fact even in the building. He returned his stare to me, unhappy with the pace of my progress, albeit steady and unwavering as always.

The loudspeaker clicks on, pulling all attention from me, and momentarily, he could swear even my incessant movements halted. He felt silly for even checking, by now he knew better than to wonder but I had not skipped a beat, unlike his heart which was still attempting to escape his throat. A lullaby wafted through the speakers announcing a birth, ‘The’ birth we had all been waiting for. The soft melody melted his hearts with memories of sleepless nights, baby’s first’s, scraped knees and contagious sleepover laughter as his entire soul filled with joy, not even fatherhood brought him. Him and I had traversed a lot together, his whole life, to be exact. A torrid love affair of both wanting more and wishing me away; as is many people’s relationship with time. After a hard slam of the cover of his timepiece, suddenly pleased with my performance, he shoved me back into his raincoat pocket. Leaping up from the waiting room chair, he leaves me, ushered through corridors and hallways until he finds his new destination, arriving with the new title of Grandpa, while I simply continue; after all, time can only do so much.