by Adama, Grade 10
My heart is beating out of rhythm and almost out of my chest
And I find myself pacing back and forth unable to rest.
I try to stand still as best as I can,
But seeing I’m unable to, I proceed to scan.
I look at my surroundings from the floors to the walls,
Then from a distance I hear the buzzing of a call.
I stumble towards the sound, tripping step by step,
And slowly I get closer misstep by misstep.
I finally get to the ringing and pick up the phone,
However, on the other side no one seems to be home.
“HELLO!!” I yell, getting a bit frustrated,
As I stood there and waited and waited and waited.
I slammed the phone to the floor and waited to hear it shatter,
But as I looked down I immediately noticed the matter.
There was no phone and instead there layed a cane,
I jumped back in shock and thought, I must be insane.
Back came the feeling of stress and of fear,
And hardly able to contain myself I let out a warm tear.
Just at that moment a thought came to be,
And as I pondered on that thought I sunk to my knees.
My heart started beating and pounding like a drum,
If there was no phone where did the ringing come from?
I jumped to my feet cracking the marble floor,
As I stumbled through the house, knocking over the decor.
“I must find the ringing!” I exclaimed to myself,
While I knocked over the jam and toast from the shelf.
I searched the whole house from top to bottom,
Even the backyard where the leaves were autumn.
And yet the ringing was not to be heard,
I looked myself in the mirror thinking this was absurd.
But then the ringing came again along with another sound,
The ticking of a clock was now quite profound.
I whipped my head from side to side trying to catch their location,
And as I did so the sounds lengthened their duration.
Suddenly I stopped and looked back at the mirror,
All of a sudden the sounds seemed to be nearer and nearer.
I studied my reflection, starting at my lips,
Then to my eyelashes down to their tips.
And finally my eye which immediately filled with terror,
I look more closely hoping to have made an error.
In doing so I confirmed that I was not mistaken
And what I saw in my eye made me extremely shaken.
There in my eye there was a collection of gears,
Which moved together in unison, this had me in tears.
I looked at my other eye and hoping for normality
And instead was disappointed with its originality.
Bright numbers ticked past, 9 to 7 to 8
I stumbled back and mumbled, well this is just great.
About to collapse from all the stress and fear,
I started to ponder about the numbers that appeared.
9 to 7 then 7 to 8, what a strange combination,
But weirdly these numbers had appeared in a different situation.
There was definitely something that was weirdly amiss
Something that I couldn’t simply dismiss.
I thought and thought, but just couldn’t remember
I think it was something that happened in December.
As I kept thinking about what I’d forgotten
A smell arose, a smell quite rotten.
It seeped through my nose
Which immediately opposed.
I snapped back to reality and began a new quest
To track down this putrid smell and finally give me a rest.
I marched through my house investigating closely,
Nothing was found yet the smell grew grossly,
It penetrated my nose like a needle through fabric
It was a smell so gruesome I just couldn’t withstand it.
These roaring sounds and deadly smells drove me to insanity
Couldn’t they have just a shred of humanity?
Just then the numbers ticked past again
9 to 7 and 7 to 8
This definitely brought something to mind and just then I remembered
OH, WAIT IT’S ALREADY TIME!
Elements Magazine 