The pocket watch slowly ticks, mechanically pushing itself as if it were a burdening task. Brathen sits. His breath is loud and is just as forced as the mechanical watch. He watches and waits for it to stop. It doesn’t. The sunlight catches the stars of dust in his old living room. Nothing had ever really changed in the place, Brathen was not a man of complicated desire. He knew he liked his tomato and cheese sandwiches with pepper and pickles, his coffee black and bitter and there was never any reason for change. The table has been in the same position for the past thirty years, with flowers placed as a centerpiece and the pot plants sat on the balcony as his oldest and closest friends.
The room was still and silent apart from his breathing and the melancholy tick of the watch. He frowned, why would the watch not stop? Crinkles formed around his eyes and upon his brow. Weary of the relentless beating of the watch he slipped it back into his breast pocket and wandered to the balcony window. The view was fresh and grew. He could almost glimpse his own youth as he gazed at the saplings down below. He knew the area well and it had remained the same, just like the tick tick tick of his watch. He could feel the pulse through his jacket.
Gardens had flourished and trees had thrust themselves high into the air, no longer could he see the tops from his balcony window. He gazed and watched as flowers burst open in the blooming warmth only to close and shrivel in the cold. Vines tangled themselves up the poles creeping their way to the banisters and curling towards the balcony door. Bushes began to bare fruit and become homes for young critters sheltering and feeding them. Roses enveloped the garden below the window on the ground level. A huge cracking noise thundered and shattered the glass, a tree had lost it’s strength and arms came crashing to the lower botany.
Silence ringed in the air, everything stopped. Brathen listened carefully, but the ticking remained. Gradually, forms of moss spread over the dead trunk and devoured the carcass. The vines resumed twisting and tangling themselves around his home. He remained still, mesmerised by the movements happening more and more rapidly, enclosing him in his own tomb of shrubbery. The sunlight was being blocked and the room appeared a green tinge and felt warm and muggy.
Swallowed by the greenery, he put his hand to his breast feeling for the comfort of the watch. Scrapping noises came from each direction and all mixtures of earth colours and twig like shapes were tearing at room. Bugs crawled through the gaps and ferns sprouted through the cracks. Colour filled the room as tropical plants began to flower and gave off strong yet not unpleasant smells. The twisting, cracking noise got louder and came from above. Brathen gripped his golden pocket watch, clinging at it in his wrinkled hands. The bright sun broke through the roof, canopy surrounded the room above him. Gazing in awe and terror at the trees that had created a cavern from his home, he realised a twisting around his ankle. A cold, soft and green vine curled it’s way up his leg and lifted him off the floor. It was gentle and strong. It finally landed him on some remaining debris of his roof. A hush of leaves moving in the light breeze rested his ears and the clear air gave him a new breath.
He stood with the sun on his face, listening to the trees murmur and the birds whisper. But a something was missing, a sense of normalcy, a trusting feeling.
Without looking at the time, he knew. Slowly and sadly he returned the watch to his breast pocket and sat amongst the canopy listening to the world without the constant rhythm of his faithful pocket watch.
