The heart rate monitor to your left stutters its already syncopated beeps. The valleys between the peaks of the green electronic mountains stretch longer. You barely hear the "pfffst" sound of oxygen as periodic injections are made through the tubes in each nostril. The noise becomes less noticeable as the "lub-dub" thump in your chest echoes like the last few straggler fireworks during the Grand Finale of the 4th of July display. As your senses fade, the TV mounted to the wall on the far side of the room sneers and says, "Now, don't you wish you'd watched more of me?"
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The large mason jar in the crook of his left arm is brimming. He concerns himself not with the limited space. Those captured will soon die and loose their appeal. He is instead obsessed with the thrill of the chase--mesmerized by the "Swoop!" of his net as it slices through the air, capturing another beautiful specimen.
The veins in his eyes stand out red from the strain. Sweat drips into them. He wipes the beads away urgently, eager to examine the new prize. Like the others, the markings on the left wing resemble the letters "S" and "T" while the body has a distinctive "U" shape. The right wing features what can only be interpreted as a pair of "F" markings.
"Almost complete," he says with a tremble in his voice. But then another, more beautiful, rarer specimen flutters past before he can spend any more time admiring the latest catch. He quickly removes the lid, crushing past collections as he forces the recent one in. The lid is replaced by touch alone because his eyes still follow the bigger, better conquest. He does not notice the shadow as it falls over him.
"Swooosh!!"
The net still hangs at his side. The draft from this new, foreign motion chills the slick sweat on the back of his neck. The day that once felt so warm now feels uncomfortably cold. Dark fabric billows in the corner of his eye. He never has a chance to turn for further investigation of the figure.
"Swooosh!!"
The wound sickle comes back down. The mason jar shatters as it hits the ground. The collector becomes the collected.
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She wakes. Her eyes scan the blackness of the room. The window is a deep shade of purple--a faint square, barely distinguishable from the rest of the room. Morning birds have already taken to singing their pre-dawn songs.
Did that wake her? No.
In the bathroom, a fat water droplet loses its hold of the faucet rim and crashes into the porcelain below with a "Pwwooup!"
Did that wake her? No.
Blocks away, trash clatters into the collection bin of a garbage truck. The engine revs as the hydraulic arms return the emptied can to the ground.
Did that wake her? No.
"hiisssssss"
The sound is hardly audible. Compared to this susurration, her breathing crashes through her head like a marching band. Barely a notch above silence, the noise still bears a relentless quality.
Did that wake her? Yes.
She sits up, isolating the whisper. She turns and stands on the bed. Suddenly, she's overcome with the need to locate the source. She presses an ear to the large piece of artwork hung above the headboard.
Here. It's coming from right here.
The glass shatters as the frame collides with the wall on the other side of the room. Only the floral pattern of the wallpaper hides behind the picture.
Hair falls into her face as she claws at the wall. Frenzied, she tears the paper away with all the energy of a young child on Christmas morning.
"hisssssssssssssss"
The plaster of the sheetrock packs into her fingernails. She rakes at the wall like a wild, caged animal. Blood runs, unnoticed, down the length of her arm and drips from her elbows onto her pillowcase. Unfazed, she continues to treat the tips of her fingers like the blades of small shovels.
"hisssssssssssssssssssssssssss"
The plaster begins to fall in chunks, spotted with blood, as she works an opening into the wall. She rips open the brittle wall board and yanks insulation from the hole.
And there it is.
"hiissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss"
Falling sand crashes into fallen sand. The collision of each dropping grain multiplies in an orchestra of passing time. Hidden deep within the wall is an ancient hourglass. Etched in the glass at the top of the upper half is the number 40,867,092. The number is mysterious, yet significant. The remaining sand sits alarmingly lower than this mark.
Initially, she is mortified by the pile of sand at the bottom of the hourglass. She jerks it from the wall, spinning it 180 degrees as she does.
"hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss"
Disobedient. Unaffected. Unwavering. Unrelenting. The sand does not reverse direction as gravity dictates. It pours upwards at the same pace, not slowing the descent of a single grain.
She returns the hourglass to the wall, rotating it right-side-up again. She breathes deeply, no longer feeling threatened by the sound of passing time. The thin cascade of sand sings a song that, although it cannot be ignored, is still more of an incantation of beauty than menace.
The dawn breaks and light fills the room. She pulls her eyes from the mound of piled sand in the bottom of the glass and lifts them to the reservoir of sand at the top. Gratitude flushes out her angst. The pooled sand is ever-dwindling, ever-diminishing, ever-escaping, but still hers. She cannot cease the flow, but is astonished to discover that she no longer wants to. The finite amount remaining, the counted grains... they add value. They are hers.
