Fiction: Seven A.M.

Seven A.M., Edward Hopper, 1948

Fiction: Seven A.M.
She opens her eyes to the white ceiling. For a few minutes, she just lies there. Then she makes her way to the bathroom. In a few moments, she walks down the short flight of metal stairs and into the store. Her steps echo faintly in the silence. Through the window panes, dull light spills onto the wooden floor. She sits down on the chair behind the counter and places her hot cup of coffee on the glass top.
    Outside, the morning breeze barely moves the thick trees. The streets are empty. As she tries to decide whether to start going through the new inventory or go through the books, thunder claps and rain pounds down but the sound is slightly muffled.    
    The bell on the door rings as it opens. She looks up at the clock. The clock's hands has stopped at the seven and twelve. Too early for customers. Has she forgot to lock the door again? In this small town, it wouldn't have mattered but she is still quite aware she is a stranger here even after all these months. She sighs.
    The tall figure shrouded in the semi-darkness closes the door and makes its way toward her. She reaches behind her and flips on the switch. One by one, the lights above comes on.
    The tall man stops just a few feet before her and pulls back the hood of his raincoat. Raindrops drip onto the floor.
    "You're going to clean that up right?" It's her store but that doesn't mean she has to clean every mess someone makes when they come in.
    The man laughs. "Only if you think I should." He smiles and then widens his mouth. "I know I'm a bit early but your clock is wrong. It's 6:55, not 7:00. I'm here because it's your time to go."
    "Go where?" She raises an eyebrow at him.
    He points upward. "I wouldn't call it heaven but some people might."
    "You mean—"
    "Yep, you're dead. But you don't have to take my word for it. Go up the stairs again and look into your room. I'll wait here." The man sits down by the window where a low platform creates a seating area.
    She looks outside at the rain and then at the man. Then at the floor. There is no raindrops on the wooden panels. The man is now wearing a gray suit with a gray tie and holding a book in his hand. There is not a single part of him that is wet.
    She gets up off her chair and races up the stairs and into her apartment. Her bedroom door is opened slightly. She leans in through the opening. Someone is in bed with eyes closed. She moves closer. That person has her face and yet, she didn't quite have her face, not the face she sees in the mirror every day. This person has lines where she is certain she didn't. It can't be her. She's not dead. She races down the stairs and stops in front of the man still reading his book. "I'm not dead. It must be a mistake," she says, a little out of breath though she can't decide if it is from running or from her panicking.
    He peers up at her. The book in his hand disappears. He glances at his wrist watch. "No, it's not a mistake. You're dead."
    She slaps his cheek. It's a solid strike and yet the coldness of his skin freaks her out a bit.
    He rubs his cheek and smiles. "I get that a lot." He walks around her and picks up her coffee mug and takes a sip. "Ahh, a bit too bitter but I like it. We have that in common."
    "Tell me I'm not dead." She walks closer to him.
    He holds up a hand. "You are Hazel Knots, aren't you?"
    She nods. "Yes, I'm Hazel Knots."
    "Then you are dead." He takes another sip from the mug.
    "I'm dreaming. That's it I must be dreaming." She turns around and looks over her store. Ten years she has labored to get this store running. She can't die just when she finally finished off the payment for the building.
    "No, you're not dreaming." He puts the mug back on the counter. Steam still raises from it. "But I can you tell this: If you can move the clock forward, then you can live." He points to the clock that is still on the seven and twelve. "But you can't do it. Someone else have to wind the clock."
    "Wind the clock? That's a ridiculous lotion. How can my life depends on a clock that I forgot to change the battery?" She looks up at the clock. Still 7. She remembers the morning that it stopped. It was the day she decided to stay in this town and the day the tree nearby had fell and struck the roof of the store forcing the landlady to sell her the building at a low price. Hazel has hoped to have at least twenty or more years. Where is the rest of her life?
    "I don't make the rules. But if you can get someone to wind the clock forward, then you can live. It's that simple. But it's also kind of hard because you're dead, at least your body is, and without a body that moves and talks, how can you get someone to wind the clock forward?" The man sits down on the chair, her chair. "Perhaps you'll get lucky and someone might come in and gets an urge to wind a clock."
    She couldn't be that lucky. No, it's impossible. She might as well declare defeat. Slowly, she sinks down on the platform.
    Outside, the rain subsides to drizzles. Time passes slowly. Often, she does not wear a wrist watch as no matter the time of day, not much happens. She does have steady customers who comes in for the occasional theater memorabilia but most knows when something new comes in as she sends out letters to them.
    The bell at the door rings. A large woman closes her yellow umbrella, ushers in a small boy wearing a yellow raincoat and closes the door. "Hazel, sorry for the mess." She drops the umbrella in the silver can by the door. "Benny, stay put for a minute."
    Mrs. Hail. Hazel's next door neighbor. Also a steady customer.
    Hazel stands up.
    Mrs. Hail looks around and her eyes lands on Hazel but she doesn't linger. She walks toward the door leading toward the stairs to her apartment upstairs and stops before the threshold. "Hazel? Are you here, Dear?" For a long moment, Mrs. Hail stands there looking up. "Must be in the bathroom or something. Oh well, I'll just leave the book here." She digs out a small book from her coat pocket and places it on the counter beside the coffee mug. It is a mystery novel that Hazel have wanted to read.
    Mrs. Hail turns back. "You get down now, Benny."
    The small boy has climbed up the shelves below the clock. "But the clock, it's wrong."
    "Never you mind. You get down here before you hurt yourself." Mrs. Hail walks over to the boy.
    Benny slowly climbs down leaving droplets of water on the shelves and the floor. Mrs. Hail grabs the boy's hand and her umbrella and is soon out the door.
    So close. "She didn't see me." Hazel sinks back onto the platform.
    "That happens a lot. Don't get anxious so soon." The man was peeling an orange.
    "What are you doing?"
    "What do you think I'm doing? I'm peeling an orange." He breaks off a piece and puts it in his mouth. "Delicious."   
    "Shouldn't you be helping me?"
    "Should I?" He shrugs. "I doubt I can do anything for you and besides, it's forbidden for me to interfere."
   The bell rings again. More people enters the store. Mr. Bops, the neighborhood barber, peeks in the gap of the door that he holds open but doesn't enter. Then Miss Betty, the young girl who wants to be an actress. She comes here for the occasional manuscripts. She looks around a bit but doesn't stay long. There there are four people - two men and two women. They are tourist, probably stopping by for a brief break from the rain. They leaves after lingering for a few moments.
    The rain stops and night soon settles in.
    Hazel has been sitting on the platform watching people come and go while the clock stays stuck at the seven and twelve hands. "What happens if someone winds it backward?
    The man shrugs. "No idea. That have never happened before." He is still sitting in her chair though all the people who comes in has not seen him either.
    "What are you? The devil? The grim reaper?" Hazel has not believed in any of those things but here is a man defying her beliefs.
    He shrugs again. "No idea. But you can call me Charlie. I go around collecting souls. Well, that's not true, sometimes I get to go on vacation."
    "How many people got someone to turn their clocks and lives?"
    "None. Well, that's not true. There were a few but they don't count."   
    "Why not?" She meets his eyes. They are green like a lime.
    "Because they've done it wrong."
    "How did they do it wrong?"
    "You know, you could have asked those questions about a few hours ago."
    "I'm asking now. I didn't think it would take this long to get someone to turn a damm clock."
    "Hey, don't get angry at me. I didn't make the stupid rules. I certainly didn't want to be here but I'm forced to be here. Now you have a choice. You can come with me now or you can stay here for another day."
    "So I have til tomorrow?"
    He nods. "Just today and tomorrow. Forty-eight hours."
    "Why forty-eight hours?"
    "Why ask why? Some things just are."
    She glares at him. "Why forty-eight hours?"
    "That's how long it takes for one person to notice another is missing or not at their regular place." He holds out his hand and a cup appears. Steam rises out of it. Hazel's mug is sitting on the counter cold. "At least, that is what I am told to answer."
    "But is it true?"
    Charlie shrugs again.
    "Never mind. Do I just sit here and wait or can I go somewhere?"
    He raises his eyebrows. "You just starting to ask these questions? Never mind. You can't be too far from your body or else you'll just boomerang back here." A table covered with a white cloth appears with a plate of steak. Charlie starts cutting the steak.
    "So basically, I'm struck here until tomorrow or until someone turns that damm clock?"
    "You've got it, babe." He smiles and chews the piece of steak that he had just placed in his mouth. "Care to join me?"
    "Do you even need to eat?"
    "No, I just like to. I think in my past life, I was a food lover or a starving orphan." He takes a sip from a glass of red liquid. "Strange, red wine doesn't taste as good as it used to."
    The bell at the door rings. Mike enters. "Hazel?" He scratches his head of brown and gray hair. "Where the heck is she? How am I know what to fix if she doesn't tell me?" He walks toward the door leading out to the stairs. "Hazel? Are you up there? No one has seen you all day. If you're playing hooky, at least, close your store and turn the lights off. Hazel?" He turns and looks around the store.
    Hazel waves in front of Mike but he doesn't stop to look at her. He turns around and races up the short flight of steps. His footsteps makes clunking sounds. "Hazel, I'm coming up. I need to know what is it that I'm supposed to fix. Hazel?"
    Hazel watches as Mike returns downstairs.
    Charlie shakes his head. "Such a gentleman. He didn't even look into your bedroom."
    Hazel smiles and then frowns. If Mike had looked, he would have seen her lifeless body or he might assume she is sleeping.
    Mike  looks around the store again. His eyes lands on the clock. "Damm it, Hazel. You know I uses your clock to tell time now and then." He walks behind the counter and pulls out the drawers and rifles through them. "Now where are those battery that I got you last week?"
    Last week, Mike had insisted she change the battery on the clock but she has been too busy or perhaps she just forgot.
    In a moment, Mike has changed the battery on the clock, winded the hands forward to the right time and hangs the clock back on the wall.
    "This one's a keeper. I think you should marry him," Charlie says and grins.
    Hazel ignores him.
    Mike turns off the lights, pulls the shade down on the door and closes it behind him.
    "What happens now?" Hazel asks.
    "Now you wake up." Charlie tilts his head and smiles.
    Hazel's view starts to blur and then everything goes dark.
    She opens her eyes to the white ceiling. Then she gets up off the bed and races down the stairs to the store. Bright morning light spills in through the windows. The clock on the wall says 9:30. She's alive! But what really happened last night? Had she eaten too much spicy chicken wings? Was it all a dream?
    She looks around the store. Everything's the same and yet, she have a strange feeling she's the one that is different.
    She turns back to go upstairs but a man appears blocking her way. "Hello," he says.
    She starts to scream but then stops. The man looks familiar in his gray suit. "Are you—"
    "No need to ask. From this moment on, you'll forget me and last night. I must say, the coffee you made tastes a whole lot better than the ones I get up there." He points a finger upward.
    "What—Are you here to— What?" She wants to panic but isn't certain why.
    "Relax, you won't see me for another fifteen, maybe twenty years. I'm just here to make sure you are back in your body and you are so my job's done. Goodbye." He waves and then he vanishes.
    Hazel blinks and then she forgets why she is standing there. Something about a clock. She looks toward the clock on the wall. It's 9:32. Hasn't she forgot to change the battery on that thing?
    Then she spots the book on the counter next to her usual coffee mug. She looks inside the mug. It's empty. She flips through the book. When did Mrs. Hail came in? She should get ready for work. Not that she has ever opened her store at the same hour. Today, she somehow wants to do more than just open the store. But first, she has a sudden urge to make some coffee. She picks up the mug and walks back up the stairs. Maybe today, she can get up the nerve to ask Mike out to dinner.

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