The Alarm Clock

It was very early in the morning when the alarm went off. He listened to it for a while hoping that the sound would fade and that he would not have to use his body’s sleep muscles to turn it off. But as is usual with all alarm clocks, the sound continued, the constant sound seemed even louder now as it forced his body to slide away slowly from sleepiness via the sound it delivered to his ears. He decided to turn it off but turning it off awakened him even more since it involved the movement of his arms, something he had hoped to avoid.

He woke up and stared at the alarm clock while still in bed. His eyes were half open, one cheek glued to the bed as he lay on his stomach, and his thoughts were distorted. Part of him wanted his eyes to close so that he could get back to the comfort of sleep, another much smaller part of him wanted them open. There was no reason for him to get up really, nothing but that inner voice that kept telling him to move on when everything else around him had gone. Everything was telling him to go back to sleep and that the new day wasn’t worth living, but that very small yet powerful voice was telling him to get up and go on living. He looked at his alarm clock and while deciding whether or not to get up, he realized what he was, a man who had lost everything.

He was a man who had lost everything but was left with that monotonous residue called living. He was left with the means by which to live, the place in which to live and a job to make a living. He was left with lots of health to squander, lots of years to waste, lots of things to see. In short he was left with all the means of living yet deprived of a life.

On days when he would look into a mirror, he felt so much like the reflection he saw rather than the object that caused it. He felt very similar to a two dimensional reflection that appeared to have substance but was only a thin reflection of light. He was an illusion appearing to have all that which constituted a life with none of its reality.

He felt he was a reflection because as a reflection would disappear in the darkness, all of the real life in him had disappeared in the darkness of his sorrow.

He looked at the alarm clock and he saw it looking back at him. They spoke with their eyes. The alarm clock had two voices that were much like his own. The clock said look at the time. That same sentence had two tones. One was, look at the time, all of it is gone, and the other was, look at the time, you need to seize the day. The clock said look how time flies and it also said don’t let time pass you by. The clock said my seconds are an eternity and it also said my seconds pass too quickly.

He asked himself a question, why would a man who lost everything wake up now and go on living. He found no answer. He found no answer or reason as to why he should, but something illogical inside him provided him with an answer he did not fathom, an answer he could not interpret, an answer that wasn’t even clear. It was more of an urge than an answer, an innate knowledge that trampled over logic, it was an urge and a belief that he must go on.

Against his sleepy body, his aching head, and his reason, this feeling triumphed. He got up and scratched his hair and tried to forget about that little conversation he had with his clock. He looked at his bed and his clock and thought, I’m not setting that alarm ever again, but he knew in his depths that when it was time to sleep he’d have another similar battle to face.