The Bells

There are no clocks I can see, but I can hear eight working ones in the room, plus the bells of a church.  It's always dark when I wake up, and the light through the window is from a paranoid streetlamp.  I am tired.  I don't want to wake up, but once the gears start turning, the discomfort sets in & I know I'll be awake.  The eight clocks in the room, for LA, NY, BA, London, Berlin, Bangkok, HK, Tokyo, and the dead Moscow clock at night seem like a perfect train of rhythm, a locomotive pulling a slow heart down even tracks.  It isn't hard to fall asleep.  When I next hear them, they are quieter; my mind is louder.

 

I can hear every movement in the house, the flame of the heater, the fan, the metal clicking and bending with temperature, the creak of wood and more.  If I move, it will hurt, but I can't stay still.  Sitting down in flourescent light, putting on ugly trousers in the cold, I am unsure if this is life.