Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Time Thief

Yesterday I spent most of the day gathering together the lost hours from all of the beings that are in and around my house. ( In the UK we have a curious system of time, run by clocks, where once a year the hands of time are turned backwards at 2 am.)
There were four human hours, all different. Each of the hours I caught in a net and moulded into a solid small bead. There were four dog hours that looked a little lazy and ill formed and four cat hours, bright beads like amber. In corners, almost hidden, I found complicated, soft spider hours, fast and scuttling mouse hours and outside there were feathered, drowsy flicks of bird hours, huddled in bundles in warm places. The hours were all from two in the morning. The birds had been sleeping.
It was a warm night, so to add to my string there were aerymice hours from the fast furious hunters of the starlit sky. These were dark, almost so dark that you could not see them, only visible from eye corners. And there were owl hours, curved like claws with moonlight a crescent in their form, somewhere.
And because it was All Hallows Eve there were other hours around from people and creatures who had lived in the house far back to when the stones were gathered from the fields around and shaped into walls. These were the hardest to catch.
Each bright bead formed from stray hours was different in character from the next. Each I gathered to myself, greedy to capture more time for when I needed it. As I strung the hours together the weight of time grew heavy, the hours all lay, coiled around and upon each other, each more beautiful than the last.
By the end of the day I was tired but the moonjar was full and I had hopes of how to use all the time I had trapped. I have so much work to do. I have to finish A Rhyme In Time by the end of January so that it can go to press to be published in the autumn of next year. I have some other work that I must push forward on as my part of this is one of the building blocks of a major project and it cannot progress without some drawings, some paintings. There are paintings that I wish to do, friends who I want to spend my time with and I would like to get out and walk more. And above all I would like time to just sit and think, either at home in the silence of the house or on the hillside, above the sea.
So, I thought I would test my time machine. A mouse hour would be good. Small, and round, it flickered with a nervous energy as I popped it into my mouth and swallowed it down.
What happened next was hard to explain. Mice live in a different time zone from humans. I know that now. An hour was like a year, but I could not use it wisely. Instead I hurried fast around the house, nervously pulling at this and at that, jumping at every loud noise, a minute seeming to be an hour, heart beating faster than the ticking clock. A bird hour was more elegant, but no more use to a human. I just wanted to be out of the house and could almost feel the place where my wings should be, and I yearned for the sky. The hour of a bird trapped in a human throws itself against the cage of the body in its desire to be free.
It had been a good idea, had made a beautiful collection, but it would never work.
You just can't capture time, although, if you are lucky you can steal a little of someone else's with an elegant pattern of words.

17 comments:

  1. This is one of the most magical pieces of writing I have ever read!
    Thankyou, JAckie.

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  2. such beautiful words~i am breathless form them~thank you *hug*

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  3. absolutely delightful. I wondered about mouse hours, but perhaps a cat hour would be better.
    Thank you.

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  4. Wonder-full! Happy Samhain :)

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  5. I am delighted to spend a few beads of my time with you whenever you have spare moments to write for your blog followers!
    Time to simply "be" and think is so sadly rare--there is always the list of things to do, grimmacing over one's shoulder.

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  6. This would make a great book with your wonderful illustrations.

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  7. Thank you for a delightful fancy...I think I would love a cat hour...just lying in the sun, watching my tail curl and wave with its own thoughts. I love joining you on your whimsical journeys.

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  8. what beautiful words to wake up to here on the other side of the world, thank you for sharing... Ooops! gotta go, Ariel P Cat is swirling up and down on the keyboard and rubbing his hard little chin on my glasses... he needs some time!

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  9. Lovely words, Jackie. You may have my hour... though not until next week, as the US doen't switch until 6th Nov.

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  10. Fabulous and magical, as always,
    Cenya

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  11. Oh time, time, time, how I wish I could gather some up for myself!
    I love your pattern of words, especially the complicated spider soft hours and the scattery mouse hours... almost a bit pratchetty! I love also the sense of overlapping lives you have conjured...
    Carrie... :)

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  12. So charming. Lovely, lovely thoughts penned in just the right fashion. The Fashion that makes the whole look so easy but we all recognize the difficulty and precision of each word placed. As any great beadworked piece would show.

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  13. Telling magical tales like this you can always steal some of my time 'cause you give something wonderful in return,thanks.

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  14. Dear Jackie, I would willingly give up six of my Griffin hours for you any time. In the meantime, maybe a couple of cat hours would be useful... and less skittish than mouse hours.

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  15. This is wonderful! Your pattern of words didn't steal my time; I gave it up to your beautiful images that I'll carry in my head all day. Thank you.

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