The Persistence of Time

The Persistence of Time

The clock on the wall seemed to have stopped. No, maybe not. The second
hand made its slow descent towards the six, but then seemed to struggle
against gravity when attempting to reach the nine. By the time it
finally touched the twelve; several days had passed. No one noticed of
course, no one except Ashley. Trapped in school, she had forgotten what
lesson she was in. It didn't really matter; she didn't enjoy school
much. Sure, "Ashley is my favourite pupil, so hardworking, so
conscientious," the teachers would tell her parents, but that wasn't
her. That just seemed to be a face, one of her many masks that she put
on to impress people. Would that impress Him? Of course it wouldn't.
Well, she didn't think so anyway. He could see through any mask,
through them into your soul, most probably. But then again, Ashley
didn't care, He was just an idea to re-assure people, make them feel as
if they were being kept safe. He didn't seem to keep Ashley safe, so
why should she care?
A piercing shriek split the silence of the room open and suddenly the
classroom erupted, spewing its contents into the corridors. Knocking
back chairs, the girls raced out of the room, hurtling towards the
toilets where they would meticulously apply layer after layer of
overpriced cosmetics to hide non-existent blemishes and shadows. Ashley
normally joined them, enjoyed walking down the street to town whilst
smiling at her admirers and their appreciative whistles aimed her way.
Normally she would bathe in the attention, but not today. Although she
was the first out of the lesson, she ran to the lockers rather then the
mirrors. As she threw her things into the locker, she hurriedly took a
few books she thought she might need for her homework. "Homework,
homework, oh God homework!" Ashley realised she had left her entire
project in the common room the other side of the school grounds. She
quickly glanced at her watch. The LCD display read 16:08 she was
already late. "No point in going back for it now, I'll think up an
excuse on Monday morning," she thought to herself. Grabbing her bag,
Ashley silently sneaked out of the lockers, ran through the school and
ignored the questioning glances she received from the bare faced girls
in the corridors. She slipped on the blazer that now swamped her small
frame, the same blazer that astonished her friends. The same phrases,
"Wow, what kind of diet are you on?" or "You look so much slimmer,
you've lost weight haven't you? Even your blazer doesn't fit you
anymore!" Pushing the thoughts out of her mind she sprinted across the
hockey pitch, over the netball courts and into the car park. Jumping
into a flashy red convertible she was oblivious to the tirade her
mother had launched into about her tardiness. Instead, staring out from
behind her dark sunglasses, she watched the buildings around her scream
by eventually blurring into one unchanging background.
***
Sitting in the specialist's office, she was given her news. It had
taken precisely one minute thirty four seconds for her world to have
been turned upside down. To her left her father shifted uneasily in the
chair and continued to stare at the floor as if he would find some
wisdom in amongst the green weave. Her mother, sitting to her right,
let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding and burst
into tears. Ashley didn't notice. Quietly, she stood up and walked into
the waiting room. On one of the pastel yellow walls, irony struck her.
A poster on the wall stared back at her. "Support the National Heart
Foundation and Save A Life." Slowly, she sank down to the floor and put
her head in her hands feeling as if her heart was now broken.
***
"No, that's not right. The tests are wrong. You've made a mistake. Do
them again. I need a second opinion, you can't be London's only heart
specialist, I need another doctor. Mum, take me to another doctor,
please." Ashley pleaded.

"You must realise Miss Barker, that although your condition is rare and
can be, well, fatal, please remember that so can 'flu. You must not
focus purely on that word. There are many treatments that I can
recommend, many with a 90-100\\% recovery rate. That is the joy of
living in the times that you do, medical science is positively
booming!" The specialist enthused.
"I think, Mr Johnson, were you in my position you would be focusing on
that bloody word. Personally I don't care what is happening to medical
science, all I know is that you have made a mistake and you are going
to fix it." Ashley's voice grew colder and more menacing.
"Ashley Nicole Barker, I suggest you be quiet right now." Her father
advised in a calm tone. "You do not speak to anyone like that." Mr
Johnson sent a silent look of thanks to him and hesitantly
continued.
"I am going to refer you to another specialist called Mr Samuel. He has
dealt with many rare heart diseases and is one of the best in the
country. The only advice I can give you, and I hope you follow it, is
to not exert yourself too much. Please try not to stress either your
body or your mind too much, and try to see Mr Samuel as soon as
possible. If you speak to my assistant she will organise an appointment
with him for you and will arrange for a letter of confirmation to be
posted to you to verify the appointment. Remember, this condition will
limit you physically but I have the utmost confidence in this man and
he will give you an entirely un-biased opinion. I hope I have helped.
Mr Barker, Mrs Barker, Ashley, good afternoon."
***
"It was nothing, just a regular check-up. Mum was going mental 'cause I
was meant to leave early and forgot." Ashley lied rather
convincingly.
"Oh was that it, I thought you were dying or something. You'll have to
forget the sympathy vote I was going to give you then. Anyway, I have
something far more important to talk about, Guy Ritchie! Can you
believe he is going to marry Madonna, I mean, she's not exactly..."
Watching the clock, twenty seconds had passed and Ashley refused to
listen to Trinny for any longer. Trinny had the tendency to talk
rubbish, permanently. It wasn't her fault, she grew up in a household
where all of the people listened to her all of the time. She was
spoilt, basically, but she couldn't help the way she was raised. It was
annoying but a fact that Ashley had learned to live with, but not
today. Today it seemed the world had come crashing to her feet and
putting up with Trinny was just the last straw.
"For god's sake Trinny, would you just shut up! I don't care about Guy
Ritchie and Madonna and London's Fashion Show. It doesn't matter who's
marrying who and what is now 'so pass?'" Ashley shouted, mimicking
Trinny's favourite phrase. "I just don't care!" Nothing was said
between the two for a few seconds until Trinny finally broke the
silence.
"It's 'who's marrying whom'" She replied quietly, but only to the sound
of a dead line. On the other end, Ashley lay sobbing on her bed. She
couldn't die. The crying didn't stop until an alarm clock shattered the
silence in the room the next morning.
***
Unfortunately, the next morning just happened to be a Thursday morning.
Which meant that there were two more days before the weekend and she
also had triple gym. Complaints of a headache and no desire to "exert
myself too much just like Mr Johnson had said" gave Ashley the day off.
Watching a film her mother had taped for her, the video had ended
before the end of the film, leaving the punch line untold. A creepy
feeling of deja vu passed over her. Tomorrow, she would go back to
school. She just needed a day to sort herself out. That idiot doctor
was wrong. How could she possibly be dying, she felt perfectly fine.
Well, not perfectly, but the idea of death was something connected to
people in pensioner's homes, not her. No, she wasn't dying. Seeing her
friends again would make life better again. She would apologise to
Trinny and then go out to UltraViolet with the gang tomorrow evening.
Clubbing cured all ills. Anyway, she wasn't even ill."
***
"Trinny, I'm really sorry, you know I didn't mean it. I was just, I
don't know, a bit out of it. You know what I mean?" Ashley said
cryptically. As always, Trinny graciously accepted her apology and
politely changed the subject.
"Too right you should be sorry, I should sue you for mental anguish.
Anyway, you would not believe who phoned me after you hung up, Lee! I
know, I couldn't believe it either but he wanted to know if anyone was
going to UltraViolet tonight, so of course I said yes but then he
started going on about..."
***
The room shook with the heavy bass notes of the latest dance tracks and
Trinny and Ashley were performing their latest 'empty glass' trick. It
always worked, and soon enough, some guy came up to them offering them
a refill. Ashley realised that she hadn't bought herself a drink in
over three months. Of course, the slight fact that she was a year
underage had never stopped her, and getting other people to buy the
drinks for her was just the way to get round that little problem. "All
the more money to spend on clothes and make-up" she told herself.
Standing in the middle of the 'hippest' club in London next to the Met
Bar was exactly the way Ashley loved to spend her Friday nights. She
knew she shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be exerting herself, but she
wasn't ill. Tomorrow her parents would leave early to go to the
auctions and she would have the day to herself to sleep off the alcohol
and generally relax. Well, relax until five when she would then be
forced to smile prettily at her mother's friends throughout another
boring dinner-party. But here and now was her place and time and Ashley
pushed all thoughts of boring dinner parties out of her mind and
proceeded to accept the offer of another drink from a tall handsome
blond with a cool Adidas wristwatch.
***
A ray of sunshine pierced the gloom that had descended upon Ashley's
room. Stretching lazily, she slowly rose from her bed and thumped
loudly down the stairs into the kitchen. A note with her mother's
scrawled writing on it caught her attention and she picked up the
flimsy piece of paper from the counter.
"Gone to auctions with Elizabeth, having lunch at 1pm and probably
won't be back before 5.30pm. Your father will be working late today on
an extended lecture. I have my mobile if you need to get hold of me.
Remember: look presentable this evening as Jack and Maria are coming
over for dinner + cocktails at 7pm. Look on coffee table, letter for
you came this morning, from Harley Street. Kisses, Mum."
Ashley looked at the clock, five to one. Her mother would just be
walking through Elizabeth's doorway now and making false compliments
about her new carpet. A pretty normal Saturday. Picking up the envelope
on the table she would open the post after her shower, it wasn't going
to tell her anything spectacular. Passing down the hallway, she
realised that she looked a wreck. Getting in the night before at an
hour too late to remember she had failed to remove her makeup or even
brush her hair so she looked like what Trinny would describe as "a
scarecrow in drag." Again, Trinny always had a way with words. Taking a
deep breath, she decided that the best way to start the morning, or
rather afternoon, was to get the body moving. Standing at the bottom of
the stairs, she looked at her watch and began sprinting up them two at
a time. As she reached the top, she glanced at her watch again.
Eighteen seconds for four flights of stairs, not bad. Dropping the
envelope on the sideboard, Ashley entered the bathroom. She suddenly
felt a flash of pain being drawn across her chest. It lasted only a
moment, and then went again. The words that Mr Johnson had said to her
raced through her mind. "Don't stress either your body or your
mind...remember this condition will limit you physically." Ashley shook
away the thoughts. No, she wasn't ill, it was a mistake. Turning
towards the shower, she started to walk across the freshly polished
wooden tiles but then time seemed to slow down. Another searing pain
shot through her. The next thing she knew she was sinking to the floor
and she couldn't breathe, then the pain went, but came back again, and
repeated itself over and over. Panic started to set in. Desperately she
tried to sit up and prop herself up against the door. Her breaths were
short and sharp now, her eyes scanning around frantically for her
mobile phone. It was on the corner table. All she had to do was edge
her way around and call mum. Then she would be ok. Stretching out with
her right arm, she tried to reach the towel rail. Missing the rail, she
landed on her side, doubled up with pain. From her position on the
bathroom floor she stared at the clock above the stairwell and once
more the clock seemed to have stopped. No, maybe not. Closing her eyes,
the world went black. Ragged breaths turned to soothing silence, and as
the silence continued, so did her dreaming. She dreamt until all of the
pictures in her head turned to darkness, and with the darkness came
peace.
***
"Ashley, darling, I'm home. Sorry I'm early, I know how you like you
solitary Saturdays but the auction didn't go ahead in the end. I don't
even know what time it is actually. Oh blast, the clock on the stairs
has stopped, five past one, I was just going to Elizabeth's for lunch
at that time. You were probably still asleep in the darkness. That
woman should really hire a decorator; her carpet is appalling. You
didn't open your mail, oh well, do you mind if I do? Let's see who it
is. Oh I was right, it was the specialists. They say they've had a
cancellation, can fit you in on Monday, you're lucky. Apparently they
are incredibly busy, very difficult to get an appointment these days.
Ah well. Darling, where are you? Are you in the bathroom? Darling?
Ashley?"