A Broken Clock Never Boils by C.J. Weiss

Author:C.J. Weiss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C.J. Weiss
Published: 2022-09-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Stand­ing in an open pa­tient room ster­il­ized of emo­tion, two po­lice of­fi­cers droned their ques­tions at Claire. Un­known to them, she had slipped from the in­ter­view be­fore it be­gan. In her place, a stranger in­hab­ited her body as it sat on the edge of the bed.

The stranger re­sponded plainly to their queries, of­fer­ing a mix of gen­er­al­i­ties and specifics seem­in­gly in­tended to limit fol­low-up ques­tions. She didn’t re­mem­ber the words but later re­called judg­ing the replies as ad­e­quate. As the pro­ceed­ings car­ried on with her dis­em­bod­ied husk, she con­tented her­self by watch­ing med­i­cal staff walk the halls in slow mo­tion and count­ing dull col­ors found on fur­ni­ture and walls. Words fun­neled back and forth through the air, ob­scur­ing her vis­ual fas­ci­na­tions. She could al­most reach out and touch them, if not for their forms crum­bling upon her turn­ing her at­ten­tion to them.

When the of­fi­cers’ in­ter­ests turned to el­e­ments where hon­esty called into doubt her san­ity, the stranger feigned mem­ory loss or an­swered vaguely. Un­able to com­pre­hend the words them­selves, Claire as­sessed their trans­mis­sion from one mouth to the next, ac­cept­ing the re­sults as facts with­out un­der­stand­ing what made them so, like a young stu­dent be­liev­ing in physics be­fore learn­ing the math be­hind it. In­cor­po­real ex­am­i­na­tion of the in­ter­view­ers re­vealed they ac­cepted these replies with­out sus­pi­cion. Mean­while, the stranger con­trol­ling her body looked past them into a void. Its blank stare per­sisted un­til the po­lice in­formed it that the cam­eras showed no sign of her at­tacker. The of­fi­cers, fix­ated on her bruised neck, re­quested the stranger de­scribe Ryan to a sketch artist. She shud­dered from the fi­nal ren­di­tion, which had cap­tured his essence down to his fiendish grin. The stranger re­mained as a block of ice, and what the po­lice made of this re­sponse, they did not in­di­cate.

The in­ter­view con­cluded shortly there­af­ter. She snuck back into her body, tak­ing a mo­ment to sub­due the sick­ness and suf­fer­ing she had briefly left be­hind. The po­lice re­mained while she re­cov­ered enough to pose a ques­tion of her own. Re­veal­ing the Fre­do­nian let­ter, and claim­ing un­cer­tainty of its lo­ca­tion, she asked what they would do with it if she found it.

Run it for prints and store it in a locker.

Away from pu­ri­fy­ing flames.

And so she said no more, opt­ing to leave once doc­tors cleared her of a con­cus­sion and in­ter­nal in­ju­ries. From the in­stant she started her car and be­gan driv­ing, a fo­cus foisted it­self upon her, as if she were a bee tak­ing or­ders from her queen. Cars blurred into the back­ground. Stop signs and peo­ple shared sil­hou­ettes. Murk­i­ness dark­ened oth­er­wise bright stars. Her con­cen­tra­tion broke only once, when a long red light and a se­ries of gulps seared into re­al­ity re­min­ders of the evening’s at­tack. Her wind­pipe closed as she re­lived the stran­gling, suf­fo­cat­ing her, driv­ing her to seek an out­let for re­lief. She mes­saged Jess and Robert, Can’t talk. Need you at my home ASAP, then the phone slipped onto the floor­board, and she won­dered if she should be driv­ing at all.

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