The Time Keeper





The Time Keeper

The Time Keeper crossed his arms, an ink design curling on his skin from under his sleeves. He was dressed all in black and forbidding in his stance.

We ran from him, trying to find a path through the woods, but he was always behind us. He barely fit into his white vehicle with open sides, although he was tracking us with it. A voice pumped out from the vehicle's depths reminded us of our tardiness. The warnings were incessant and seemed to spread through every angle of the forest. 

Were we really late? And for what?

Our feet scurried past a gnome staring at a pool of pestilent water. Green algae covered it, and his job was to keep guard day and night. He remained with his focus fixed on the surface and didn't look up as we passed. I slowed down to see what he could see in the water, and could have sworn I heard a scratchy voice say: "Jump in."

I scanned the gnome's pointy face, but it was of stone. Still, I had the urge to swim into that pool, no matter how murky it might be.

"Jump in." It was an order this time, but the gnome had not moved his lips.

What would happen if I hopped in? I wondered. Would I be sucked in by the plant life, never to be seen again? How many other travelers to this enchanted place had been pulled into its depths? And was it the gnome who convinced them to enter into it?

The shout of the Time Keeper snapped me back into action: "The exit is over there!" 

He had gotten out of his vehicle and was pointing to some stone steps cut into the ground.

"But these are the stairs we came in on!" we insisted, showing him another set of steps we had found. 

One cannot argue with the Time Keeper. He was omnipresent, prodding us to leave.

Well, I have to admit, it was the Time Keeper's job to blast the announcement that the park was closing so loudly that all you wanted to do was escape. He was very good at it, because flee is exactly what we did: from the Time Keeper himself, Time, and the Stone Gnome.

Text: Kristen Mastromarchi

Photo: "Sundial" by njj4 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.




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