A Picture is Worth 300 Words Challenge - Grace

I'm not sure this completely makes sense, but here it is...

Relief. Water. My tongue screamed for water. With feet of lead I shuffled across the cracking expanse of dirt and dust. I pulled at my dress coat sleeves, tempted to remove the stifling burden, but no, I couldn't. This was all a part of the job.

I saw everything in black and white. You're either in or you're out. You're either right or your wrong. If you want to reach the top you have to sweat for it. No pain, no gain. Yes, that was me. I was going to win the world. Nothing but the top would quench my thirst. So I trudged on. Miserable, confident, me.

And then I reached it. The spot. I don't know exactly how to describe it except that it looked like a garden of sorts. Clocks on iron poles sprouted out of the desert ground, like needles puncturing time-wrinkled skin. My mind was baffled. Where was the water? I sulked among the clocks, my thoughts spinning, my heart drumming. What were these useless minutes towering over me, mocking me?

Like the sudden gong of my grandmother's clock, thunder clapped and a voice broke through the churning clouds above me. “The time has come when time will be no more.” And I looked up at the clock to my left, and the ticking hands dissolved before my eyes. And I realized, all I'd worked for, all I'd done to race to the top, was wasted time. For what did it matter anymore?