Old Mother Time

By Sam Slattery (c)

It was a lot more random down my way, back then, than it is nowadays. There were one or two empty looking houses-that sat solemnly in the shadows at dusk-no one to draw their curtains, if they had any-and just an eerie abandon emanating from them, like they were waiting-with things inside waiting, to the deliberation of child thinking.

Who or what she was, I'm not too sure-and will probably never know. How had the narrative of her mortal coil brought her to be out, of an early evening, trawling the streets around Goodwin road-and asking all in sundry whether they "Had the time, dear".

Most assumed that she was asking for what was written on a clock face, and give her the required information uncomfortably, especially those of us who were only just becoming au fiat with being able to properly read clock faces.

Others would ignore her, and run, or walk away quickly, if they saw her-to avoid becoming doolally themselves...try and slip away from the sickness with as little confrontation with it as possible.

And it was always at dusk...or seemed to be, though how accurate this is concedes debate, because really that was the only time I saw her.

Maybe, on reflection, it had nothing to do with clocks. Maybe, she just wanted to pass the time of day-maybe she was saying "In our ever changing, ever quickening-pace of life, have you got the time to just chat for a few moments-tell someone about your day, or listen to what they had been up to in theirs..."Have you got the time, dear, to listen to me for a minute...because I want to listen to you for a minute...nothing more"- make a connection, to deaden isolation...talk about something.

In our fairy tale outlook, we thought she was a witch....that, as soon as she ensnared you-that was curtains, and they'd find your bones, one day-a spare rib, discovered by an excitable dog, sitting in the guttering by a drain grill...mulched by leaves, or a young eyeball being pecked at by a starling, on the road leading down from the terrace mansions, to where the crazy golf used to be.