The Girl Who Turned Into a Clock
All of a sudden, Tia woke up hastily to the morning sunlight. She grumbled wondering why her mom had opened the windows without her permission. She doesn’t like to be woke up early and pushed to go to school. She always makes million reasons to be late at school. She hates school because she thinks it is boring. She was going to shout and cry as usual when she found out that she was not in her bedroom. She was stunned. She was in her classroom.
Sun spread its light beautifully. Something she had never noticed before. From the far left below, an old man who Tia reckoned as the school janitor was entering the classroom. The old man cleaned the room, as he usually does. She tried to spill her rage to the old man, to no avail. She realized that no words were coming out of her mouth. She panicked.
Shortly after that, her friends started arriving into the classroom. None of them were late. They were chatting and laughing together. Some while preparing for the first lesson and the some others while hurryingly tried to finish the supposedly homework. But, surprisingly it seemed that they were having such a good time in the morning. Tia stared sadly at her friends. She had never been in the class with them early in the morning since she had always been late. Out of the blue, one of her friends, Alisha, pointed at her and half-cryingly mumbled “It’s 07.30 already. I should have finished my homework”.
Tia was puzzled. “Why did Alisha say something strange like that?”. Then, she started observing the whole classroom carefully. Now, everything became clear. No doubt about it, Tia had turned into a clock!
She cried on and on. Then it became harder and harder. No one heard and noticed the very existence of her in the classroom. The first lesson had already started, and she still couldn’t stop crying. Little by little she stopped and watched her friends quietly listening to the teacher. The teacher had always been so kind to the students, although sometimes she appeared to be a bit strict, but she patiently taught them, with no hurry and no shouting. When Tia had been one of the students sitting there, she would have whined “Argh, what a boring class”. Now, when she began to realize that she had wasted so much of her precious time in class without understanding the kindheartedness of it, regrets come rushing inside her. She awfully missed the time when she had been there.
She spent hours observing the class closely. She discovered that every laughter of her friends truly matters. She also began to appreciate every mistake of her friends too. She used to tricked the weakest kids around. She was pleasantly surprised when one of the kids she had used to annoy, went asking around to know her whereabout. It turned out everyone was worriying bout her, it meant that they do care.
Tia also tried to pay attention to the teachers and see the bright side of them. She found that every lesson is useful; none of them was wasting her time. One time she caught her English teacher, Ms. Lila, her face shocked while reading newly received text message in her mobile phone, it seemed like it was a bad news. But when one of the kids approached her to asking, she shed her tears and smiled.
Everyone had gone home at the end of school day. She couldn’t deny feeling lost and lonely.
When the night fell, coldness and darkness replaced the beautiful afternoon’s warm shine, she felt terrified and insecure. She remembered one of the stories she had told to frighten kids in her class, that every monster will show up at night and haunt the bad kids. She would laugh hard at the weakest kid who tended to cry out loud upon hearing this story. She had never believed the story was real, until a group of monsters walked into her class that night.
They were bunch of miserable creatures that you would never see in a broad daylight.
They spoke to Tia, “We used to be like you, but we wasted our chance of having fun with our childhood and tended to hate everything. Then, one time, we became what we hated and trapped forever in this dreary shape. You can come join us, if you want”
She glared and for a moment, couldn’t think of anything. And then, she remembered her mother’s advices. She tried to hold back the tears swelling out from her eyes. She silently spoke to God in her heart.
“Dear the Great God, My Mom used to teach me if I ever feel lost and lonely, I should ask You to be my friend, and You’re gonna help me. I’ve learned so much today. Now, I am so blissfully grateful by the fact that You showed me all these things. They opened my eyes. I promise I’ll never complain about my wonderful life as a kid anymore and will be a better girl from now on. But, please, I’m begging you to let me do those things as a human being”
And when tomorrow morning came, the Great God accomplished her wishes.