Tack Tick: A Short Story

Anyone who claims I’m a hacker probably isn’t one. – Anonymous

It is three in the morning. He turns from left to right, right to left, and finally lies supine. This is not insomnia; he usually falls asleep when the first rays of sun scatters at his window, and his daily routine begins at sunset - a habit formed over years. However, there is something odd about it at this moment; there is anguish deep inside. He struggles on his bed like never before. Tick Tack Tick... The second hand is moving at the eternal pace. And when the sixty tick-tacks are completed, there is a soft but deep tock of the minute hand. And when three thousand six hundred tick-tacks are completed (sixty soft but deep tock sounds), he hears a tuck, softer

Has he seen them before? The girl resembles someone: the one he had met some months ago, the huge crush. But she was only thirteen, and he was twenty three. When he was thirteen, she was just a three year old toddler. If he was forty and she was thirty it wouldn’t have made any difference. But she is thirteen; no, he shouldn’t even think. Oh! She was so smart and so innocent. For days she traversed all over his neurons. Anyhow, he finally managed to lock her in some secret chamber deep inside his brain, and continue the so called life. : My granddaughter can’t login to her mail account. Can you please look at it? The old man walks out of the room, leaving the two behind. He looks at her mysterious eyes, and they scream the awful truth. She knows that it is he who hacked her account. But she acts as if she doesn’t have a sliver of idea. His heart beats pulsate, his pulse quivers, and there is sweat all over his face even though it is peak winter. What a terrible dream! The clock on the dark wall shows eight. He slept for twelve hours, yet feels so tired as if he hasn’t slept at all. How that one small dream lasted for twelve hours? Maybe dreams are the parallel universe. It would be so nice to take the place of the other me, and send him here to suffer this agony. What a diabolic thought,

He had his ideals and objectives. Then why did he do it? He goes back in time when he was just seven years old. He had stolen the pen of a classmate. His mother hadn’t spoken to him the whole day. The next day she had made him promise that he’ll never again steal in life. He sees his mother’s wrinkled face. Her tearful eyes are asking only one question: Why? No, he can’t look into those grey eyes. His heart beats pulsate, his pulse quivers, and there is sweat all over his face even though it is peak winter. He falls from the bed. What a terrible dream! The clock on the blue wall shows eight-ten. He slept for only ten minutes, yet feels lively as if it was for days. How he saw two long dreams in just ten minutes? Now he knows what to do next. He closes the music player which is still playing the same classic (repeat mode), and opens the client of his Trojan horse. Now he is sure what he must do. There is a knock on the door. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even hear the knock. Then there is another knock, louder. He doesn’t respond. Then there is a sharp