The Tenth Hour

The trees sway gently to a backdrop of dark clouds. Enclosed within a small room, the cold still ravaged bare skin.

I rise, and slip into something warm - the blue and yellow cardigan should do. Stripes are usually lucky, and the blue might match my eyes. There was no mirror to check this statement, it did not matter. Instead her eyes drifted around the room, groping the white walls for some sane reason to remain awake. None.

The clock on the wall suggests the ninth hour of today would complete in a matter of seconds. Yet the sun was still in bed under heavy blankets of clouds. It had been like this for several days now. Almost an omen… if such a concept should exist. Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding; thus begins the tenth hour.

The sounds of the wall clock resonated around the room. Pulsating atoms allowed the sound to transfer the clock’s words to her unsuspecting ears. She bit her lower lip in surprise or anxiety? A bit of both. Fixing her eyes on the carpet beneath her, she ruminated through the events of the past day. It had been a change from her usual routine: breakfast, work, family and friends.

The twenty-four hours she had just lived thinking herself to be a carefree woman in the city of Sydney. Pretending that she was a new person. But she was the same…

She had never been that carefree woman of Sydney. No. She had always been Ash, the same blue eyed Ash that her family knew, her friends knew, her colleagues knew… Yet Ash herself did not know who she was. Confusion battling against her, she shook her head slightly. She was Ash, not the Ash everyone thought she was nor the carefree woman of Sydney. She had blue eyes yes, but her eyes meant nothing without the experiences it had seen. And she had seen a lot.

Yes she was Ash. A new Ash. She had been born again in the tenth hour. Born with a new purpose. Her destiny calls… will she take the bait?