Inmate #846329253: The Clock Was Ticking

    The clock was ticking.
    That's all I heard for... well, I can't remember just how many lonely nights it lulled me to sleep.
    I think I've been here for six years, eleven months, twenty one days. But then again, this could be an exaggeration, or an understatement. I'm not certain either way.
    Certainty. I haven't felt certain over anything in a while. No, that's a lie. I'm always certain that the clock is ticking, and it doesn't ever relent.
    Tick tick tick tock. Tick tick tock. Tick tock. Tock. That's the rhythm of every minute. That set perfectly six times every minute, or eight thousand, six hundred and forty times every day.
    No rhythm is unique, but she always plays the same melody. Sometimes when I'm lonely enough, I'll start to sing along, But I simply can't keep tempo. It's simply too perfect, too flawed; too fast, too slow. I just can't keep up, no matter how long I try to hold my breath.
    Occasionally every year the prison guard comes by and feeds me. I think there are others like me here, but they never make a sound; they never show figure. I don't either anymore, But I did once, and even then I heard nothing but the clock tick tick tick tocking. Tick tick tocking. Tick tocking. Tocking. 
    Maybe they did speak, only I didn't hear them because she speaks louder than them. She and her melody always singing. She never needs to stop for a breath.
    And that's why I can't sing along. I need to breathe. She doesn't.
    To be honest, I have long since forgotten what I look like. I imagine that at one point I looked like the prison guard who comes by every now and then to feed me food that I never eat.
    But he has a voice. I do not.
    Now I'm not entirely sure what I look like, or really, what I am. After all, solitude has a way of doing that. Like a few drops of water trickling down a mountain, this darkness – this solitude – forever eats away at me; taking what it wants, when it wants.
    And now, with her and her singing, a once great mountain has become mere dust. Mere dust and nothing more. Nothing more than her melody I try so very hard to replicate; to master.
    Tick tick tick tock. Tick tick tock. Tick tock. Tock.
    Yet, no matter how many years I sing along, she wont ever notice the second voice. After all, she doesn't need to breathe.
    And that's why she wont ever stop. Her melody continues on despite anything that may happen. It matters not who is where, where is when, when is how. It matters not when. It matters not where. It matters not how. She will always sing her intoxicating song. She will always keep tick tick tick tocking. Tick tick tocking. Tick tocking. Tocking.
    Humans are mere grains of sand to her. They are – to Her – nothing more than a meaningless speck of dust that she so warmly caresses between her toes on the beach she owns.
    With enough anger, however, humans form bonds with each other and from dust – from sand, they form glass. Glass that can cut, glass that can break. Glass that can trap, and glass that can shatter.
    And even then, humans are mere mortals. Despite how many glass bottles there are on her beach, Every last bottle of human existence will eventually be washed away by the tide. That is what Time does.
    And so society will be whisked away by the natural forces she so effortlessly controls with her song. Nothing can be forever remembered. Nothing can be forever alive. Nothing can be forever breathing. Nothing.
    That's how it is. That's how it has always been. Mere humans have to breathe. Mere humans have to die.
    But the clock never has to stop. She can always sing her song. She can always keep tick tick tick tocking. Tick tick tocking. Tick tocking. Tocking.
    Tick tick tick tocking. Tick tick tocking. Tick tocking. Tocking.
    Tocking
    Tock.