A Conversation Between a Girl and her Alarm Clock

The alarm clock screeches through the beauty of the dream like a siren piercing the stillness of a summer night.

“Wake up!” it screams to her.

“But I don’t want to wake up….I was happy; it was beautiful.”

The face of the alarm clock seems to sneer. “You were dreaming. The dream is over now.”

“It can’t be. You’re wrong. The time is wrong - don’t lie to me, I shan’t believe you.”

There is a quiet in which the clock seems to take pity on her as she lies there, befuddled and bemused, incapable of realising what is so very obvious, the dream still clinging to her like lover’s kisses, her eyes part closed, remembering, her body in rapture posed.

But then it screams again and she is jolted wake wards.

“Wake up! You cannot spend your whole life dreaming!”

She is about to tell the clock about the dream, about who she met there, about the smells and the sounds and the sensations, but another blast from its bell cuts her short.

“Save your words,” it says, “and get up. He has already risen - look how the space beside you is empty - he is living and breathing and laughing and loving in the real world. Get up and do the same. He enjoyed it immensely, I’m sure but he has forgotten you, you who are crumpled bed sheets and ragged hair. Get, up, you fool.”