Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock

The clocks keep ticking away the hours … the days
Each day a story is told and another is forgotten
Somewhere a candle goes out and another is lit in its place
And thus we interchange ­ the old for the new
The sick for the healthy
And we live with the knowledge that we will be replaced
Just as one moment becomes the next
We will all return to the earth

And we all march to the rhythm of the clocks
Synchronizing our heartbeats
Until we cease to exist as individuals
And merge into the faceless collection of flesh
Repeating the same routine ­ day in and day out
Controlled by the clocks
Obsessed with time

Hands running in circles
We perform our ritualistic dance
Twisting our lips and painting our faces
Tick Tock Tick Tock
But there’s no escape
For time will destroy our masks
As we will destroy each other
All in good time

And we sit hypnotized by the dim glow of our silver screens
In amazement, we watch intricate shapes gracefully shift from one frame to another
Images consisting of thousands of multicoloured pixels
That they have the power to make us laugh
And the power to make us cry

A voice calls out from inside a little black box
“The end is near”
And the words echo across the sky
And people scatter like millions of startled spiders
In all the wrong directions

The streets roar with chaos
Panic becomes the active ingredient in the bloodstreams of all
Destruction and violence fall with the rain
Denting the fragile faces of our oceans, if only for a heartbeat

And the population abandons its quest for survival
The workforce crumbles, leaving thousands hungry
People wander aimlessly in circles
Mumbling nonsense to anyone who’ll listen
And they steal and they lie and they kill

While the rest prey
To a god, to a demon, to a careless creator
With hands held high
They beg for forgiveness
And tears fall from their eyes until they can’t see
Whispering divine words until their tongues start to bleed
Then they sit in silence and wait for an answer
Rocking their wasted forms back and forth back and forth
But no answer comes
And there is only the steady buzzing of time
Rushing by all too quickly

And they cry out in terror
And they bargain with the devil
Selling their souls for that extra breath
Running out onto the streets naked
Gasping and shrieking
Grabbing onto passers by for the sake of something to hold
Something that in their mind is stable
Yet the startled strangers are just as confused, just as scared
Pale with dread and anxiety
And in this frenzy they embrace each other
Doing the Foxtrot to the shadows of a forgotten melody
Celebrating their mortality
And accepting the inevitable

5…4…3…2…1
And they know that the world will end
So they laugh until they cry
And they wade in pools of bliss
Sucking every moment of pleasure out of their otherwise pathetic existence
Intoxicating themselves until everything seems foreign
And everyday objects become unrecognisable

And they sing songs of how we will all perish
Turning into dust
Tiny clusters of matter
Floating around in the blackness of space

And they join hands and rejoice
Thanking an unknown force for the chance they’ve been given
And they dwell among men of hate
Hating none
Without worry and without concern
Hoping the next life will not end so abruptly
Letting their imaginations run wild
As they weave tales of what lies ahead
Spewing out syllable after syllable after syllable
And they utter:

“Perhaps we will start again
Open our eyes to a blinding light
Radiating from everything whole and in every direction
Perhaps we will not even remember what the end was like

Bitter and cold or scorching hot
Slow and tiresome or over in the blink of an eye
Perhaps this time Eve will resist sinking her ivory teeth
Into the soft body of the ripened apple
And we will all live in paradise
Without suffering and without desire
Until the next judgement day
When everything will once again begin anew”

December 30th, 2001 at 7:26 pm in Philosophy and Religion

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