For Whom the Clock Ticks by Jamie Andrew
The little psychiatrist had been watching his new patient – an uncommonly large man – for what felt like an eternity, not wanting to rush him, but conscious from repeated glances at the clock on the wall that time was running out. In the no-man’s land between their respective leather armchairs the ticks and tocks punctuated the air like gunshots.
The large man was swaddled in layers of clothing, his face obscured by the hood of his jacket. The psychiatrist dared to hope that the physical camouflage obscured a psyche that was similarly layered. A rich seam to be mined, in more ways than one.
And yet the patient had barely spoken.
‘It’s your time, Mr, eh… Mr…’ The psychiatrist had somehow forgotten the man’s name. ‘But it is customary to speak.’
The large man nodded slowly, then said in a voice as dark as midnight: ‘It sometimes feels like death is all there is.’
The psychiatrist smiled. ‘Have you considered a change of vocation?’
The large man sat impassively for a moment. ‘Was that supposed to be a joke?’
The psychiatrist peered down through his spectacles, and with a robotic cock of his neck signalled his best approximation of playfulness. ‘You say you’re an undertaker. You made a statement about morbidity. I offered levity. You rejected it. Don’t you think that’s interesting?’
The large man didn’t. He reached into the pocket of his long jacket and drew out a packet of
cigarettes. The psychiatrist offered him no verbal resistance, so he proceeded to pluck out and push a cigarette into the shrouded darkness of his face. A lighter followed, briefly illuminating his face, but the psychiatrist couldn’t make out any specific features.
‘You don’t mind if I smoke?’ asked the large man.
The psychiatrist pulled a pen from the outside pocket of his muted green suit. He unpopped the lid and stacked it at the back of the pen, but made no move to disturb the unspoiled notepad on his lap. He just held it there in his hand. Like a cigarette.
‘It’s interesting,’ the psychiatrist said, wiggling the pen in his grip. ‘That someone so deeply involved with death would ally himself with one of its greatest foot-soldiers.’
The large man puffed a jet of smoke across the room, where it lay between them like mist. ‘It relaxes me when I’m working.’
The psychiatrist shook his head and smiled. ‘Ah, but you aren’t working right now, are you?’
At that moment the psychiatrist chanced to peer down at his empty note-pad, and was surprised to see the words ‘I’M AFRAID WE’VE RUN OUT OF TIME’ staring back at him. He was even more surprised to look up a second time to see the large man looming over his armchair. The clock ticked its loudest tick as the large man reached up his hands and threw back his hood.
Then the midnight-black voice spoke one final time. ‘Ah, but I’m always working, Mr Percival.’
A bony finger reached out and pressed gently against the psychiatrist’s forehead.
And the clock fell silent.
THE END