Tick-tock, tick-tock

Of course, there is an abundance of sounds in the world. If you live in a city, there is for example the constant noise of cars, music, drills, sirens and people shouting. In the countryside you hear tractors, leaf blowers, dogs barking. Or Mrs. ten Horn’s practicing her clarinet with ‘honky tonky parade’ at two o’clock at night.

It is never completely silent. Even if you were to eliminate all sound from your surroundings, you were to insulate everything perfectly. You would still hear it. The pounding of your heart.

So, it is no wonder that we did miss it. The ticking. That precise, sharp sound of metal on metal. Every second. Sixty times a minute. Three hundred and sixty times an hour. And that every day. Every week. Every month. You could set your watch by it.

I don’t remember who pointed it out to us. Was it the owner of the new artisanal biscuit shop? Was it the fitter who came to install the heat pump? The village idiot? It doesn’t matter anymore. Suddenly we started paying attention to it. The ticking. That nagging, lonely, loud, covered, strange, recognizable, merciless sound.

So, we did notice it. But then we pretended it wasn't there. Like when you have a hernia. You feel the pain; you see the lump growing in your groin. But you imaging that nothing is wrong.

Eventually we couldn’t do it anymore. The ticking started to drown out the normal sounds. Cars raced down the road, motorbikes tore through the street, scooters rattled past the park. But the monotonous tapping overpowered the noise. As if it was a fierce warning. A brutal announcement. A calling voice.

Then came a period when people started wearing earplugs. Or headphones with noise cancellation. The locals looked for distraction. Residents watched videos. Or listened to music. Shared photos. As long as they weren't reminded of the ticking. As long as the deathly, howling noise was not heard. Anything seemed better – healthy eating, excessive exercise, ice baths – than facing reality.

Until the rumour started going around. The ticking. That was the sound of a time bomb. It wouldn’t be long before. Before what?

That was the discussion. What happens when everything explodes? There seemed to be agreement on that. We were lost. We could watch videos eternally. We could take ice baths limitlessly. None of it mattered. Our world, our earth was going to pieces.

What to do? Eat even healthier? Share even more photos? Buy even more expensive noise-cancelling headphones?

That wasn’t all. The ticking seemed to get louder. At first it was a gentle knocking of metal on metal. Later on, it sounded like someone was hitting a gong with a hammer. Heavy, merciless.

This morning, I saw residents of the street packing up. The panic and desperation were written all over their faces. Adults pushed - with dark doggedness - their fully packed suitcases into the cars. Children cried. Old people cursed. Friends argued.

Now it is evening. The street is empty, the city is deserted. Meanwhile, the ticking becomes even louder and more intense. Why did you stay, a young woman asks me. I shrug my shoulders. Is it my indecisiveness as usual? Me being wishy-washy? Did I not feel like standing in the supermarket queue to stock up on groceries? Do I secretly like the powerful peace and quietness?

“I have confidence,” she says. I look at her as the last sunlight slides over her soft face. “I don’t feel afraid. I am not scared. Not like my parents, my brother and sister, my friends. We have lived on this planet for so long. Why should everything suddenly stop now, everything disappears? Why bother because of some tapping?”

It is almost midnight. We are both sitting in the quiet garden. On the low table are nuts, red wine, cheese biscuits. The ticking is deafening. Until it is exactly twelve o’clock. On the horizon we see rocket parachute flares. A burst of fiery, bright colours.

“Happy New Year,” we whisper. We raise our glasses. And as we look at the colourful, illuminated horizon, we almost forget to notice that the heavy, merciless ticking has stopped.