Time, please !

A short story about a clock with no hands

Image Credits: Utsav Mamoria (Tumse Na Ho Paayega)

This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘TIME’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 400 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.

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7 am

The alarm rings harshly.

But he has been awake since 6 40 am. Every morning, he wakes up when the quiet blues and whites of early twilight make their way in, through the open window. It is a reminder that it is almost time to wake up and he wonders why the alarm has not spoken up yet. Like every day, he prefers getting up only to the sound of the alarm.

7 15 am

He splashes water onto his face, and hurries to wipe himself with a clean towel. He has never stopped, not even for a second, to look at himself in the mirror. I wonder what he is so afraid of seeing.

7 30 am

He opens the door for the cook. The cook is as always in a hurry. He is not sure how much of his instruction has been understood. He does not really care – he is late for work, and there are chores to be finished. His gaze falls onto the Peace Lily in the corner, needing some love and attention - and repotting. One day, he promises to himself.

8 30 am

The plants are okay for now – they have been watered. He has also had a bath and sits down for a quick breakfast – Besan chilla it is, with a green chutney. His lunch has been packed and the cook has already left for the next house.

9 am

He is dressed now – he has chosen a light blue shirt today. Everything is ready – even the small chores are done, the ones he must finish before leaving since he prefers coming home to everything in order. His shoes are polished and his leather bag looks as professional as it can.

Picking up his lunch, he moves to the door and picks up the car keys. It must have been some idiosyncrasy of his that there is a mirror near the door on the table where he keeps the keys and myriad other things he does not know where to keep. His gaze rests on a large picture frame – it is a photo of himself with fifteen odd people in it.

Congratulations to Mr. Shubham Kapoor for his retirement!

It is dated yesterday.

He seems shocked. Time seems to have stopped for a moment as he struggles to place himself in the new status quo. He looks at himself in the mirror. There is white hair. Some wrinkles, and a gaunt gaze, although he still looks quite debonair, he feels. Has time stopped? Or has it just moved so fast, that everything changed?

9 15 am

The man goes back into the living room and sits on the sofa for a while, not quite knowing what to do. He removes the coat and places it neatly on a chair. Loosening the button on his shirt, and rolling up his sleeves, he gets up to look for the gardening tools.

Time to re-pot the Peace Lily. He has all the time in the world.

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Part of the collaboration:

• “So… When will shit actually hit the fan?” by Sailee, sunny climate stormy climate

• Time: I Just Want to See It, Watch It Move by Abhishek Singh, The Comic Dreamer

• Timekeepers - Retracing the Universe’s Deep-Time Signatures by Devayani Khare, Geosophy

• Keeping Time by Reshma Apte, Fanciful Senorita

• Locating Myself In The Map of Time by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home For Homeless Thoughts

• The Thing We Pretend To Understand by Avinash Shenoy, OfftheWalls

• The lost intimacy with time by Siddharth Batra, Siddharth’s substack

• Lessons Time Taught Me by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer

• A Time for Worship by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt

• “Tata Mummy Tata” by Rakhi Anil, Rakhi’s Substack

• The vicious cycle of sixteen - A dancer’s take on keeping time by Eshna Benegal, The Deep Cut

• How long is twenty years? by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think

• How mystery writers play with the clock by Gowri N Kishore, About Murder, She Wrote

• TIME INFLATED, JUSTICE DEFLATED. by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain

• What keeps the fool in me delighted by Rahul Singh, Mehfil

• The endless ebb and flow of Time by Siddarth RG, Siddarth’s Newsletter