The Clockwork Painter
By Jack Bannon
I always hear it, that definite tick, tick, tick. It’s louder again now. That means it’s almost midnight. I’ve seen a lot of midnights. Something beautiful always happens right then. I can’t wait! The ticking is present inside me all the time, so much so that I wonder if there’s a clock in the place where my heart ought to be. Tonight the ticking is loud enough that it’s hard to hear people talk. It always gets that way, just before midnight.
My clock has ticked for thirty-five years now, ever since the night that girl jumped off the Cumberland bridge out on Mayhew Road. I jumped in after her, of course, and pulled her to shore by a tobacco field. I remember the night well. The full moon filled the buttermilk sky with ash gray light, and she, she was pale, so pale in the moonlight. I’d never seen such a creature. She was beautiful beyond all beauty. I couldn’t help myself. I had to kiss her.
Tick, tick, tick. The clock strikes midnight every three months now. In the beginning, midnight came just once a year, but what a celebration it was! There was always beauty! I remember dozens of delightful women, pale and bloodless in the night. I saw lots of them by moonlight, but a few only by flashlight. It wasn’t really the same, but it was just as fulfilling. I tell you, they were all of them beautiful, but sadly, they were each just one night.
I missed my second midnight, the one after the highway 13 bridge. Where was my beauty? She wasn’t there, she just wasn’t there. She left me, alone, in the river under the full Tennessee moon, and I wept for hours. By the third midnight I knew. I couldn’t just wait for beauty, I had to help it. I was ready that evening, and it was the most festive night of my young life.
Tick, tick, tick! I’m older now. How many ticks do I have left inside? How many ticks remain before my clock finally stops? How many midnights do I have to re-paint the beauty I saw so long ago?
I can’t see my clock, I only hear it, so I never quite know when midnight will come, only that it’s close. Is tonight my last one? I can’t see that either. I have got to paint well.
Who will I paint tonight? An internet reader who doesn’t know I can find her? Maybe she thinks of herself as an average woman, not knowing the true beauty she possesses inside, just waiting for someone to release it into the night.
Oh, I love the perfume of them! Last year, Jessica, so lovely, so aromatic, her red hair lost against a thick fur lined hood, looking like Agneth of Torgan. She was the best of them all, and the most joyful night of my life!
Tick, tick! I have two paintbrushes. They nestle comfortably against my body underneath my autumn jacket now I’m ready to go out. One is a pistol. It’s okay for broad brush strokes but it’s a little messy, so I try not to use it. It’s a clumsy brush, and real beauty should be painted with fine strokes. My other brush is a filet knife, keenly sharpened and graceful. Now that is the tool for an artist! I love to paint with it! A master painting takes time and the small brush suits my tastes far better. It lets me hear beauty while I paint. The charming elegance of a woman’s delighted moans while I paint her completely, is the most uplifting sound I’ve ever heard.
Tick! I search through the internet reader log locations. Someone will be home alone tonight, someone I will find and paint. Whoever she is, I will make her beautiful like the howling night wind.
Jack Bannon is a twenty-eight year military veteran. During his time in the U.S. Army, he served as an attack helicopter pilot flying AH-1 Cobra and AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters. He flew hundreds of combat hours during tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, also working in Iraq as an intelligence officer. Jack and his wife of thirty-eight years live in Adams, Tennessee, where they are frequently overrun by half a dozen feral grandchildren.
