Borrowed Time - Hour 2

Borrowed Time - Hour 2

Hour 2

"Borrowed . . . time?" Lowe gulped down the words as if they were nails. Fear crept into the pits of her stomach like sly larva, festering like cold sores. The watch stung like cold needles into her flesh, ticking, ever ticking in a steady, pulsing rhythm. Her eyes grew distant for a moment, misty with unshed tears. "I'm dead?"

"Why else would you be walking on borrowed time?" Zeit rolled his eyes and spat another offending German word at her, then motioned for Anza to follow. "Honestly. Do you feel a heartbeat? Do you have the need to breathe?"

"This can't be. It can't." Lowe grit her teeth, and steeled herself against the tears and his cold, callous words.

"Oh, shut up and smell the coffee," he sneered. "Hell, I bet you can't even hear yourself talk anymore, can you? Only the living can hear themselves."

"Zeit!" Anza screeched and pulled roughly on his coattail. "There's no need to be a meany!"

"I'm not being mean!" he spat back. "I'm sick of mortals constantly bitching about their damn mortality!"

"You whined too when you died."

The silver-headed man aimed a deathly glare at his young accomplice that quickly made her blush and bow her head in shame. He cuffed her upside the head and spat something else quite vile in German. German seemed to have been his native language. It annoyed his newly-dead sidekick.

Lowe glared at the man. "Can't you ever say anything in English?"

"You shut up!" he seethed in a low growl.

"No," her voice shook even though she tried to mill up the courage to keep it level. "I won't. I'm not dead! I swear I'm n---"

Twelve watches began to ring in unison. Lowe paused in mid-sentence, and fell silent. Her eyes migrated to his arm with the twelve watches and frowned. Even sound echoed especially loud in her ears. Fear began to eat at her stomach again, larva morphed into vampiric butterflies, but she forced herself to calm down. She wasn't dead. She wasn't dead.

Zeit flipped up his sleeve again and gave an annoying scowl. "I'm late. You. Come. Now." And before Lowe could protest, he snagged her by the forearm and hauled her away from her death site. He hauled her sideways, and by the third stumble they were not on a highway anymore, but in a bar. A busy bar filled with drunken old men and couples sunken into vodka stupors. No one paid attention to the newcomers, or the fact that they seemingly appeared out of no where.

The one occupant in the bar who seemed to pay Zeit or Lowe any attention was a curvy-looking dark-skinned woman with short dreadlocks and warm misty green-blue eyes. Eyes that swam and flowed and twirled --- like a never-ending circle. Like the earth. The dark-skinned woman smiled, leaning against the pool stick, and gave Zeit a wink.

"First time you've been late in three-hundred years, Zeit. Have you forgotten to set back your watches?"

He scowled and shoved Lowe into a plastic chair. Anza materialized behind him and hopped away to retrieve a pole for her master. Lowe sank down into her chair, having always been wary of bars and the people in them, her mind still numb from the simple fact that she was dead --- that she walked on borrowed time, however foolish it might have sounded.

But if this watch keeps me here, what would happen if I take it off? Would I go to heaven? she thought and dug her fingers under the silver wristband. Would I see Mom again? The warmness lurched inside of her. She began to take the cheap Rolex off.

"I wouldn't do that," Ziet told her sternly with his back turned to her. "You won't go to heaven."

She gazed at the back of his head silently, and wondered how he could have known. But then again, she had the feeling he knew many things. Of things no one should ever know. And he had seen too many sights for mortal eyes. What was he? And why did she feel compelled to believe him as if she had known him all her life? Her hand slowly slipped away from her wrist, and she sat sullenly, quite unable to backtalk.

The African American woman tilted her head slightly. "Who is this charming lass, Zeit?"

"Just a stray," he replied before Lowe could answer. "Death hasn't picked her up yet."

She hummed to herself as she sharpened the end of her stick and studied the man as if she studied a fibbing child. "My, you're quite generous, Zeit."

He was saved from answering by his companion, who skipped up to him with a shiny pool stick and a smile bright enough to shine like a sun full of hope. She nudged it into his hands. "It was scary on the highway alone. That's why we brought her."

"But why not just take her watch? You've done it before. One more stray soul doesn't matter to you, does it?"

Zeit ignored her. "Aren't we ready for the game yet or not, Eshe?"

"You're move, Zeit."

He smirked. "Elders first, Eshe."

The woman raised her stick nonchalantly and thwacked it down onto the young man's head. He winced and yanked the stick from her. With a gloveless gnarled hand. Lowe bit in a gasp, and tensed. She shot her eyes to his face. Wrinkles creased around the young man's eyes, age spots bubbled up from his alabaster-white skin, and his time-ticking eyes became gray and dull. His hair suddenly was, in fact, a silvery-white.

Lowe reeled back and bit her finger to keep in a scream of utter surprise. An old man stood before her, gnarled fingers and hundreds of saggy wrinkles. There were laughter lines around his eyes, deep and piercing as if he had laughed his whole life. But Zeit had not once laughed in front of her. It must have been an illusion.

"You are the old one Zeit. Remember that," Eshe said coldly, her anger masked in a warm honey tone.

Zeit narrowed his eyes, and when Lowe next blinked, he was young again. Not as young as before, but young enough. It were as if he coated himself in a glamour Eshe could pull away like a mask. The laughter lines were gone.

Eshe tilted her head. "You first."

His hands suddenly shaking, he tossed her stick back to her and bent to the triangle of balls that had set themselves up seconds before. He took aim with the white ball and shot. There was a loud crack, and all of the colorful balls shattered into pieces, like diamond dust. Zeit turned and grabbed Lowe by the forearm again, standing her up. "We're leaving. I don't like being toyed with."

The dark-skinned woman laughed heartily. "Ah, but Zeit, I'm the Earth! I toy with everyone"

Lowe's eyes widened. She remembered her eyes. The earth. "She's life," the brunette whispered. The grip on her arm tightened into an unbearable vise-like clutch. She elbowed him in the stomach and struggled free, hope brimming in her heart. "You can bring me back to life!"

But then Eshe gave her an anguished look. "That, child, I cannot do."

"But ---" she wrenched out of Zeit's grip, " --- but you're Life!"

"Of which I can only give life once."

"But --- but --- then who can?" she stuttered, tears finally blurring her vision. The vampiric butterflies morphed into a thousand tiny staples, curdling through her heart in piercing seizures of memories. Of Dad. Her lips quivered. "I want to see Dad! Please --- Please! You have to!" And again, Zeit took her by the forearm and forced her to calm down. She began to sob uncontrollably. "Please . . ."

Eshe moved around the pool table and rubbed her tears away. "Lowe, I'm sorry. But you're time was up."

"No it wasn't."

Startled, Lowe lifted her head to Zeit, again looking older. Again looking more tired. He had spoken, spoken so softly she could barely hear him. She stifled another sob. "W-What do you mean?"

Eshe replied mystically, "Then only Time can tell." With a handkerchief she pulled out from her pocket, she mopped Lowe's tears away again and kissed her forehead, and without another word shimmered into a thousand tiny stardusts as she mouthed the word "Goodbye."