BHS Inkwell 2017-2018

food. It was a chill morning of flapping scarves and oversized coats that exhibited the black-haired boy and his purple-bob girlfriend on the steps to the tower.They carried with them a wicker basket, out of which the girl proceeded to draw a white paper- wrapped sandwich, and shove it into her boyfriend’s mouth.The response was immediate, as the boy swatted at her with one hand while using the other to draw the sandwich out of his face, after which he reciprocated the gesture, and gave his girl a faceful of cake. As the clock tower watched them laugh, it saw that their eyes were soft, their lips smiling, and their frames curving into each other, much like two saplings tied to grow together. And as the two talked and laughed and embraced, the clock, had it been able to feel anything, would have felt as if it were opening another eye. The weeks passed, and the two lovers were a blissful pair, waltzing into the station for the black- haired boy to wave to the girl and her pink briefcase as she left the train station for work. Sometimes, they’d arrive early, walking and talking and occasionally giving out a dollar to a raggedy beggar

on the street. And sometimes, they’d sit on the tower steps and laugh and smile and bend against each other as young, robust saplings. One night, far past the evening rush hour of tired commuters, the boy and the girl climbed the dusty stone stairs into the clock tower itself.Through the endless passageways and niches the sound of pattering feet and loose calls and giggles rang in a harmony of random sounds. And once the two were done with the endless dark spaces, engaging in the things human couples did, they walked up the final flight onto the narrow balcony right in front of the clock face.The clock’s eye, lit up in a shining coin of light during the night, served to silhouette the black- haired boy and his purple-bobbed girl as they stared up into the full moon, a mirror of the clock itself, and they were all the clock eyes saw. As the tower bells tolled midnight – twelve deep, resonant rings- they kissed, the twining of saplings against the night sky and clock face. And if the clock could think, it would have thought that humans were very interesting things, indeed.

Kaya Windpainter

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