Time Marches On | A Short Story

Their job was to track events. To note exact times of happenings around the world. For months, they’d stayed in this little flat together, jotting notes, transcribing them to tape, typing them.

Day after endless day, like the one before. The ticking of a dozen clocks always a reminder that time waited for nothing, for no one, charging on into infinity. Creating the future second by second.

They went a little mad, admittedly.

She was weakening from lack of sunlight and fresh air. He pulled down the wood that covered the only window. She begged him not to do it. Certain they would see and come to investigate.

“Hush.” He pulled her over to stand in the light, just to the side of the window. “Close your eyes. Soak it up.”

She did. For several minutes, they stood in silence, in sunshine, the ticking of the clocks behind them.

Then she kissed him. It was 1:06 in the afternoon, on their 122nd afternoon together, on the 497th day of the war.

Already the past the moment their lips connected, a memory the moment she released him.

The future marching on…and on.

“We must cover the window,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He smiled. “More sunshine tomorrow.”

“The soldiers will arrive tomorrow. There will be no more sunshine. Only dust, smoke, and screaming. No one will take us from here.”

“We knew it would be our last assignment.” He moved to pick up the wood and she touched his arm.

“No. Leave it. Let’s stand here together.” Then she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again.

The future marched on. They would not be part of it. The brutal truth mattered less today than it did yesterday.

The present was beautiful.

© Shayne McClendon