• The Clock-Tower

    I stand alone, high beyond the wasteland. I am the flaw in the perfect sheet of snow, the last god of the modern world. There is nothing now, nothing to keep me alive. Nothing to make me want to survive. I was the Lord of Time. People looked up to me, begged for my secrets. Now there are no people. There is no-one to ask “what time is it?”. Without people, there is no time. I am a useless object in a world where I am not needed.
    There is no sense of reality in this place. I can not tell what is Earth, and what is Sky, the colours in front of me melt into one, but that is not the reason. I do not know what is Earth, what is Sky, because I do not remember how they once looked. It has been one thousand and eight four days, thirteen hours, twelve minutes and eighteen seconds since I last saw Earth. It has been one thousand and twelve days since I last saw the Men.
    Back when I knew Earth and Sky, the men came every day. When I was first built, they came to help me work. I was young then, I could not tick-tick the time without some help. And the Men did help. They came everyday.
    I saw the Men's little town grow around me. They built homes for themselves, for those they called Womb-Men, and the smaller Men, who would grow like the crops they planted. The Men built mills and churches. They built a building for the sick, and a building for the smaller Men. The town grew bigger still, and soon I could not see all of it within the limited reach of my face. As the town grew bigger, the Men grew smarter. And so did I.
    The town changed in the next few years. Wooden buildings became grey stone, and were filled with magic light. Soon the streets were also filled with light. It was wonderful. The Men had once been limited to my glory between the hours of six and eighteen. But now, now they could worship me in the dark hours! And they would worship. No matter how clever the Men became, or how big the town got, they still looked to me, the Lord of Time.
    In the next decade, I realised I no longer needed the Men to assist me. I could run solely on my own power. The Men, of course, were confused at first. I heard them speak amongst themselves as I kept silent,
    “There's gotta be some bugger 'ere who's doing the dirty work while we're not around. I'm telling you, there ain't no way this baby can run all by itself. It ain't one of those 'Possessed' towers you 'ere about in your wacky books.”
    “I know that Steve. I ain't stupid. Maybe old Bill's doing it? You know he loves this thing? Maybe he's going around at night. Think we should mention it?”
    “Naw, let 'im do what he wants. No skin off my back.”
    The Men soon left me to my business. A few years later they closed my entrance. “Unsafe,” they said, “Better to not go in.” They left me alone, but they still worshiped me. They would have been nowhere without me.
    On the 17th February, 2010, the white began to fall.
    I had seen the white fall plenty of times, I had ruled over the town for centuries. The Men, Womb-Men, and the smaller Men all took no real notice. The Men carried on working, pushing the white from their paths. The smaller Men played in the white, throwing it at each other or building white-Men. They seemed to enjoy themselves but they soon got cold, running into the stone buildings to the Womb-Men.
    As the dark hours came, and the Men returned home the white was still falling.
    By the third day of the white fall, there were very few people in the streets. The Men couldn't seem to cope with the white that they had seen many times before, so they stayed inside. This angered me. How could I do my duty as Lord of Time, with no subjects to bestow my knowledge upon? How were the Men to worship me if they hid indoors? It only got worse. By the 9th March, 2010 there was no one on the streets at all. The Men had given up, had ceased their battle against the white. I could only see the tops of the buildings within the stomach of the all consuming white. Within two weeks I could see nothing at all.
    The Men never came back.
    I've stood here for one thousand years. As a god, it was obvious to me that I could survive the rampaging white, but what is a god with no-one to worship him? What is a Lord of Time, with no-one to ask it of him? I am just a shell of myself. I am no longer a god, I am just a broken watch.
    I have managed to keep my tick-tick going, I had stored some of my energy over the years, but I am running out now. I could have stopped many years ago, but I was afraid of the Men returning. What would happen to them if they returned and their Lord of Time had dissolved into the white with the other colours? I could not do that to them. They had built me, and even if now I am a god, I owe them that. But now, now I am lost. To be in a world devoid of men, of sounds, of colours, of life, of time, I have no purpose, no chance of a purpose.
    I can feel inside of me the tick-tick. I slowly dissolve my energy into the white.
    Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
    Happy new year.