The Ticking Clock

Her soulmate was coming, he would be here soon and then my whole life would change. It had always just been me, but now? Now someone else was going to take her away from me after I had been there for twelve years. There wasn't much time until he did, I knew this as she looked down at her wrist in anticipation. Only a few more minutes until she met her soulmate, only a few more minutes.

"What do you think he will look like? Tall maybe?" She asked, brimming with joy.

"I can only guess," I replied.

We again fell into silence to wait for the ever growing closer time of her fateful meeting. Her wrist clock seemed to moving slowly as we still had to wait another three minutes before his fateful arrival. I looked down at my own as the silence continued to bombard us.

"It's almost time! Only a minute left," She exclaimed in pure and innocent joy.

I tried to calm her down, the line as the people in the line turned to look at us. Many, having already had a clock at zero, just smiled and reassured her while the others also brimmed with excitement, though their clocks were not nearly as close as her's was. The line started moving forward so we could buy our tickets, I moved so that we were separated in the line and encouraged her from where I was.

"Only thirty seconds," I heard her whispered.

I glanced around, but it didn't seem like there was anyone as nervous and jumpy as she was. It only took me a few seconds to find a shorter boy walking towards her in line. He had shaggy hair and a small camera. She had always thought that shaggy hair looked to cliche, so I couldn't help to laugh a little to myself.

The next ten seconds were the hardest ten seconds of my life. They walked towards each other and gave shy little smiles, I could feel my own fading. They talked about their fateful meeting finally happening, I looked down at my own wrist to look at my clock. Others around me celebrated, I could only mourn. My clock read thirty seconds just like it had my whole life.

My clock surprised everyone. No infant had ever had thirty seconds at birth, but the clock never ticked down from there. I was deemed broken, unfixable, a disgrace. I didn't stay for the movie, just congratulated her and left for home to try and heal my broken heart. Though I knew I could never heal the void that my wirst would remain a permanent reminder of. It taunted me; zero days, zero minutes, thirty seconds.

I got home and face planted onto my bed and quietly cried into the various comforters and pillows there. I cried, and I cried, and I cried. It seemed like I had been crying for ages, but it hadn't gotten, or made me feel, any better about this whole situation. How could someone like me find my soulmate with a broken watch? It just wasn't heard of. If only one other person out there would know the pain, the disappointment, of having a broken clock, I could feel happiness. If someone could understand my pain, I could feel happiness.

The weekend drug on like this, people 's clocks ticking down, mine staying still, people finding their soulmate, me staying alone. School the following week didn't help either. Many kids talked of their new found loves over the past two days while others talked about the time let on their own clocks. Some had years to wait while others were meeting their soulmate as soon as lunch. I was asked frequently when I would be meeting my own soulmate. I simple responded with "Not for a while," every time I was asked.

It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. I wasn't very popular, so it wasn't like I had to keep it some huge secret from everyone around me. Just long sleeves all the time to cover my wrist. I had also become quite the actor over the years of pretending to be happy for total strangers as they met for the first time and faking happiness when my friends left me for their soulmates. They weren't defected, they deserved true and everlasting love.