Dali’s clocks were sincere. They slipped
over things, slid past and took nothing
with them.
They changed. Or I changed them.
Pickpockets.
In the library, while I was staring into
space – I had given myself up to
laziness, swung in a hammock of not
doing – a little gang of clocks slipped
down a staircase of books and off the
desk. They smothered my words and ran
off with a deadline.
I declared Dickens boring. Shakespeare
just impassable. With too many princes.
I thought nasty things about the
librarians, planned for a life without
a degree.
I had got quite far into this new
fiction when I saw them laughing in the
courtyard. They’re not Dali’s clocks, I
realised. They’re mine. And I gave
chase.
SUSAN GORDON BYRON IS A NON-FICTION EDITOR AND PODCASTER IN LONDON. HER POETRY HAS APPEARED IN DUST AND TINY WREN LIT. AFTER A NCTJ POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN NEWSPAPER JOURNALISM, SHE WORKED AT THE CATHOLIC HERALD FOR TWO YEARS. SHE HOSTS THE CULTURE BOAR PODCAST.