In Time

My eyes opened once again at dawn. The first thing they focused on was a pile of unopened books splayed across my desk. Pens and pencils laid lifeless in a mug. I blinked back the customary blurriness of the early morning and distinguished my work-in-progress painting  propped on an easel. There, in the far corner, an oddly shaped blob had yet to make itself clear to me. I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them. Ah yes, lilies atop a dresser. 

My desk, easel, and dresser were the main constituents of my room, aside from a modest bed on which I currently laid upon. The garden in my front yard was on the other side of a window just above my desk. I could not see it then as I had drawn my curtains closed before sleep. 

A cinnamony smell wafted through the cracks of my bedroom door and greeted my nose. I wasn’t certain of its origins, but I appreciated the warm greeting at this early hour. I blinked again, realizing I wasn’t entirely certain it was early morning. My eyes found their way to my desk once more, where they fixed upon a small clock. Then I remembered that this clock had stopped working entirely; I had meant to go repair it earlier. I presumed it was around seven in the morning.

My eyes closed again as I relished in the enthralling smell. But, I could not succumb to sleep once more. I had tasks to complete: reading the books atop my desk and fixing the clock. And perhaps I could discover where the spicy smell was coming from. And my flowers seemed rather dry upon closer observation. I could refresh the water in their vase, maybe trim their stems a little.

None of this could be done if I remained laying in bed, I noted regrettably. With a deep sigh, I slowly sat up. 

Repairing the clock naturally seemed to be the first order of business, I decided. I went over to my desk to examine it. I stared at the immobile handles, stuck between the two and the three. It mesmerized me that oddly enough, both hands were between the same numbers. They could have froze between the four and the seven. Or the twelve and the five. But no, the hands had both stopped between the two and the three. 

The smell was more intense now. I began to walk toward my bedroom door until I noticed the amount of dust that had collected on the surface of my painting. I peered closely at the accumulation of particles on the canvas. I could distinguish each and every brushstroke that crossed it. Some were colored blue, others red, and some had blended into a particular shade of purple that I was fond of. I reached my hand out to touch the purple, utterly entranced. I had read somewhere that purple was the color of royalty. I had read… 

Books. From the corner of my eye, the pile of books atop my desk taunted me. I reverted my gaze back to the canvas. The paint was completely dry. I hadn’t expected it to be. I swore I had painted just yesterday. Odd. I blinked slowly, a little dizzy from the dust particles I had probably inhaled while peering at my painting. I decided to sit at my desk in order to let the bout of dizziness pass.

Books, yes. I had to read all these books in front of me. Surely this was feasible. After all, I had plenty of time. My day had just begun. I could not let myself be intimidated by the amount of them. All I had to do was organize myself, somehow– yes! I could note the number of pages, multiply that by the number of books, and divide that by the number of hours left in today, and I would be done. I picked up the closest book to me and flipped to the end. 317 pages. Not bad. The next: 298. The next: 367. The next: 917. I frowned. Nine hundred and seventeen pages. The other books were relatively the same length, but this one was far longer. Would that mess with my calculations? Four books. Over a thousand pages. And only a certain number of hours left. How could I possibly know how much to read in how many hours?

Of course. That was the problem. I had no idea what time it was because of that insufferable clock. I picked it up and rattled it intensely as if that would magically make the hands shift back into the place of whatever time it actually was. It didn’t work. Annoyed, I slammed the clock back on the desk. The glass pane of the face shattered, scattering small shards across the floor. I began to feel faint. The clock was now beyond all reasonable means of repair.

The window! The sun! I could tell what time of day it was and how many hours I had left by looking at the sky. I hurried to open my curtains. It was foggy. The sun was nowhere to be found. The fog was so dense that I could hardly see past the garden in my front yard. I was trapped– trapped, like the hands of my clock– between my loss of time and the books I had to read, the painting I needed to finish, the origins of the delicious smell I had yet to discover, the water in the vase I needed to refill–

Then I became aware of a buzzing noise. I scanned my garden, suspicious. To my horror, the noise came from a monstrous beehive that had somehow appeared on the tree. I had the frightening sensation that the bees would somehow shatter the window, just as I had shattered my clock. Now that the glass was broken, I would have to buy a new clock altogether. But that required leaving my room, and my home, which meant traipsing through my garden and risk getting attacked by the bees. But if I did leave my room and the house, I could discover where that enticing smell was coming from. But I was deathly afraid of the bees. 

I decided that banging on my bedroom window would convey my distaste for the bees, prompting them to leave. I continuously slammed my fist on the glass. To my dismay, the little beasts remained. Instead, a figure now emerged through the mist. It was the gardener. He had probably heard the noise I was making. I quickly pulled the curtains closed, conscious of my increasingly disorderly room. 

I paced around my bed. Wait. The gardener only came to tend to the vegetables every Thursday afternoon. Which meant that it was now the afternoon! But no. I recently asked the gardener to visit every Monday as well. I remained bewildered by it all–

I yelped in pain, as mid-pace, I had stepped on one of the broken shards of glass of the clock face. I sat on the bed, contemplating my current state. I was in agony, for one, from my foot. I was heavily embarrassed for myself as my gardener would surely quit due to an insane homeowner banging on the window. And I had so much to do. The clock. The painting. The books waiting to be read. The flowers in need of new water.

The morning’s – or afternoon’s – commotion had left me exhausted. I enveloped myself in one of my blankets. I smelled cinnamon again, even stronger now. It was like a warm hug, beckoning me to rest from my turmoil. My eyes began to water as I yawned. 

 I closed my eyes and welcomed sweet sleep once more, reassured that I would fix, paint, read, and refresh, all in time.