expired

Chapter 6, Part 2

Sometimes I fantasized that I wasn't the only one who could see the clocks. Like everyone was keeping the same secret from each other. For a second or two I could convince myself of it, but then I thought of all the hate in the world, and I didn't have the ability to believe that people would say and do such awful things if they could truly understand the consequences of their actions. If they could understand that yes, their words did affect people by seeing their clocks, there was no way they'd actually continue their behavior. Or at least I hoped not. For me it was the "golden rule" taken to an extreme. Kind acts can really save your life, and someone else's.

    "Eva!" Clay's voice snapped me back to reality, right before I was about to collide with a mailbox. I veered to the left, nearly falling off my bike but righting myself just in time. Clay stopped pedaling and fell back to he was parallel to me. "You good?"

    "Just dandy," I said, avoiding eye contact.

    Clay coughed, but it I heard the word "klutz".

    "What'd you say?" I asked.

    "Nothing," he said, repeating the act, clearly articulating the word through his coughing.

    "Wowww," I rolled my eyes, speeding up so that I was in front of him.

    "I'm joking!" Clay called after me. I could hear the gears on his bike clicking furiously as he caught up to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him smirking as he leaned in closer to his handlebars, his legs pumping.

    "Aerodynamics?" I asked, leaning forward as well.

    "You know it," he said. Now I knew we were racing.

    We flew through the rest of our neighborhood and down the local streets, the chains on our bikes circling so fast I thought the friction between the gears would melt them. My heart raced as I took a turn sharply to gain leverage, leaning nearly horizontally as I rounded the corner but soaring when I surpassed Clay in my risky maneuver.

"Cheater!" Clay protested, shifting up a few levels in gears and grunting as he worked harder to push the pedals. Eventually he caught up, and it was a neck to neck race. I felt myself weakening, my calves begging for me to quit. Clay, whose shiny face indicated that he had been working harder than he let on, was also panting.

With a final shot of energy I pedaled harder than I ever had, pulling far enough in front of Clay that I declared myself a winner, so I then pulled over to the sidewalk and stopped, sliding off of my bike and laying down on the sizzling summer concrete, not really noticing the looks I was getting from people enjoying an afternoon stroll.

Clay pulled over next to me, coming to a stop and leaning across his handlebars, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Red-faced and panting he turned to me, and as we made eye contact we began to laugh. The kind of laughter you only really get when its two in the morning and your best friend brings up something stupid you did in the sixth grade, but somehow even better. The kind that you're sure when it's over you'll have a six pack, only to find out you obviously don't and then you start laughing all over again-- but somehow even better. The kind where you're sure you really like the person-- but somehow even better.

After we'd settle down I sat up, asking where we were actually even headed.

"Oh, we passed our destination like a half mile ago," Clay said. I began to protest before he interrupted. "I'm joking! We can walk from here, c'mon," he jumped off his bike and laid it neatly against a nearby post, doing the same with mine and then motioning for me to follow him.

As we walked to wherever we were going, I looked around at everyone's clocks in comparison to Clay's. Everyone was ticking down normally, some even slower than normal. There was a man's ticking down particularly slowly as he enjoyed a late lunch with his wife, and another little girl's clock slowing as she enjoyed the first few licks of a popsicle, her mother's time slowing as she handed the girl her treat and they shared a smile. Clay's had (thankfully) slowed a bit. I assumed the thrill of a bike race was all he needed to be happy once more.