The clock on the wall ticks backwards in the dark. My father bought it from a novelty shop for my last birthday and laughed when he saw my face as I opened it, saying, “now you have all the time in the world, son.” The numbers are positioned anticlockwise round the face and the hands are dragged through backwards-turning circles, endlessly searching for the seconds that slipped away into the past.

The dark is thick tonight, and the clock is cocooned in darkness now as it was smothered in cheerful, coloured wrapping paper four months ago. But, even so, I hear the pulse of lost and wasted time like a heartbeat in my head. When I sleep, I dream of fighting endlessly, desperately against the present. I stretch my fingers, reaching for those summer evenings filled with muted laughter and sugar-coated almonds. I strive for blurry, silhouetted figures who stand against the backdrop of my childhood. I try to catch and cradle in my palms a time that even my clock will never find again, no matter how far back it ticks.