Tale

Antoinette watched the clock that was in front of her. The second hand had advanced more and more slowly until it convulsed, like the leg of a spider that had been violently torn off. Then, it had stopped completely, announcing the death of time.

The corridor brought the murmur of distant laughter. They belonged to the children playing outside, unaware of the death of time. Also ignorant of Antoinette’s terrible crime, the reason for which she was at that moment, outside of time, sitting on that cold bench, clinging to her seat with her little fingers. Fearing that, if she let go, the universe would break.

For a moment she thought that perhaps it would be better to live in a shattered universe now that time had died, instead of facing what awaited her on the other side of the door. The consequence of her terrible crime, the cause of that guilt that rattled on the back of her neck like a woodpecker that grew stronger and stronger.

From the other side of the door came a persistent sound, perhaps it was hundreds of spikes crashing against some stones. Then there would be the sound of a car being pulled, and then the spikes would come again. This is how hell must sound, like a mine.

Antoinette wanted to get away from that place and run towards the flowers in the garden. She thought about how much she liked to talk to them and tell them her secrets, knowing they would never reveal them. She then remembered how they withered when she told them sad things. Surely, they would all die if she confessed what she had done to them.

A tear trickled down her face and landed on one of her shoes. She then noticed that her socks were dirty. Her mother didn’t like her getting dirty. And her father would be upset to see her cry. It didn’t matter anymore; they couldn’t love her after what she had done. She was about to cry when she realized that the sound of the spikes had stopped. The door opened. The hour of her sentence had arrived.

A very tall man called to her with a serious voice from the other side of the door. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and stood up. Each step she took toward the door seemed heavier. She felt her stomach try to rise and hide behind her heart. But her heart was shrinking and wouldn’t be able to hide it.

In an instant that seemed violent to her, the door closed behind her. She was now exiled from the world. The tall man invited her to sit in the chair across from the desk. Antoinette walked over to the desk, looking at the guillotine that rested on it. She looked at the corpses of the sheets arranged in the trash can and imagined that her head would end up right there. As she walked, she felt that she could hear the voices of her parents and the teachers whom she had let down.

Antoinette sat in the chair. She heard the click of a second hand. There was a clock hanging on the wall that still did not know that time had died. The girl put her hands on her lap and watched the man as he arranged the typewriter that was in front of him, next to the guillotine.

The man fingered his tie and cleared his throat. He then looked at Antoinette with a disapproving gesture and put his fingers on the machine. He struck the keys, A N T O I N E T T E, each one sounding like a pick striking a stone.

The man kept writing. Maybe he wrote Antoinette’s crime, maybe her sentence. But that moment seemed so long to Antoinette that she believed that she would stay there, listening to the sound of the pikes and the running of the car until she herself, like the second hand, writhed a few moments before death.

The sound of the machine stopped. The man sighed. He looked into Antoinette’s eyes. She felt the man grew behind his desk and she thought she saw a reddish flash on the man’s face.

«You didn’t do your homework». The man finally said as Antoinette read the plaque on the desk: Principal Sanson.