3:25

The clock had long stopped. The batteries run out, the hands immobile at 3:25. A time that both of them never really saw on this clock’s face. Fresh batteries were lying in the drawer in the other room, but innumerable excuses presented themselves to the mind, easily articulated, with the conversation always ending in a loving tiff with each telling the other as to why it was the other person’s responsibility to keep the clock in order. And then ensued tender love making. Always.

3:25 the clock read and 3:25 it did read for years and years till she died.

He came home from the funeral, and the first thing that registered were the hands of the clock stuck on that damned 3:25 time. He checked the watch on his wrist and the digits read 3:25. Co-incidence! Surely not. He buttoned up his coat, put on the hat he had just kept on the chair, grabbed the wet umbrella loosely deposited in the umbrella stands five minutes ago, stepped out of the house and heard the click of the door locking behind him.


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It had been raining for 2 days straight, and young Jim Morrison, orphaned, lovelorn and on the look-out for his next five minutes of fame, glanced out of his window. The lamp in the street burnt a dull orange hole in the concrete below. A strange surreal feeling engulfed his mind whenever he focused his eyes on the dimly glowing centre of the sodium vapour bulb, dimming out the dark street; the patter of the rain on the corrugated tin sheet below, the sloshing of the vehicles on the busy street and if he timed it right even the chimes from the town clock. He had been doing this on and off for the past four hours. His muse had walked out on him, yet again. This time in a huff. He had taken too long to come out of his stupor and clearly she had had enough or that’s what she said. He knew that she had been looking for an excuse to walk out on him for weeks now. He had seen her walk into the coffee shop in her fake sable coat with the red dress peeking below, collar raised to protect her delicately long neck from the vagaries of the rain. He had seen her stride on her long black stilettos into the cafe, standing on tip toes for the brief moment she planted a kiss on the cheek of the tall Italian guy who ran the cafe. Her deep red dress rising up just a little to expose more of the shapely creamy thighs he had spent hours dreaming about and kissing. His muse. His last big love. His inspiration. His paramour. His life of four hours before.

Clicking his lighter on and off, he would gaze at the burning lamp through the rain streaked window and through the lighter’s steady flame. Surreal. Ghostly. Thoughts of setting fire to all the stacks of paper lying scattered on the floor came to his mind. He would welcome the heat. He would welcome the burning glow, so much more potent than the flame of the measly 5 cent lighter and the burnt out lamp on the street. And the fire would rage consuming all he held dear, all the words he had ever penned down while he just sat and watched the world outside. Modern day Nero they would call him. Fiddling away while his city burnt. And he gave a low chuckle. “Prone to notions of grandeur”, she had said. He closed his eyes for the longest time imagining the smile that had played on those pink stained lips of hers. “Lips in full bloom. Lips of the softest red when the grease paint had been wiped off by his kisses. Lips puckered in a pout whenever she would absently stare at something, lost in her own world to which he was never given access. Lips as soft as rose petals. Lips divine. Her lips on mine. Her lips, her lips, her beautiful lips resting on mine”.

He let out a huge sigh and slowly opened his eyes. Raised his wrist to look at the time. 3:25 the hands read. He fixed his gaze back on the street lamp and its orange shadow on the street.  


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