Josép Aliénor threw down the ridiculously dense copy of The Comprehensive Guide to Magic
Spells. Lois was the one who read all this, but now that he had a job, Josép was left to research his own condition with nothing other than what Lois had told him and this insufferable excuse for a book. No, the book was fine. It would have been really helpful, actually, if Josép had any idea what he was looking for.
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t see the tattoo without a mirror, but he could feel it burning into his back, and he could hear its slow, constant ticking. Some nights it drove him crazy. It never stopped. It never quieted. He heard it sleeping and waking, night and day.
Some days he couldn’t stand it any more and slammed his fist into the wall.
Then his parents would come.
“What are you doing, Josép?”
“You need to stay calm. There’s no reason to get angry.” He kept his eyes down, but
he wanted to scream at them. You don’t understand. He wanted to tell them how it felt to have your seconds counted, not everyone’s seconds counted like a clock did, but just your seconds. They didn’t understand what it was like to have a time bomb on your back, a time bomb that could do anything when it went off. They didn’t know, and they couldn’t. The
truth would be even worse than years of oppressive lies.
Josép checked his watch to see if it was time for Lois to come home yet. Then he
remembered that his older brother wouldn’t be home until the weekend. He sighed. It was only Monday. This was going to be a long week.
Nihilistic Porcupine 