‘So…so you hear this…clock? This ticking? Everywhere?’
She looked at him. ‘No. That would be an auditory hallucination.’ She leaned in. ‘Do you hear a clock ticking?’
He sighed, exasperated. She smiled this time.
‘It’s more of an alarm,’ she explained. ‘My Grandfather’s clock when I was a child, clocks actually. He had a Grandfather clock, chimes, built into the wall.’
‘Your grandfather actually had a grandfather clock?’
She smiled again. ‘I must be showing my age,’ she sniggered at his impoliteness, as politely as she could muster.
He knew better than to apologize. He had met his match. She would openly laugh at him if he had, and then all semblance of his dignity in his profession would have been shattered. "‘Please continue,’ he mustered instead, pinching the top of his nose, pretending it was related to a sinus infection instead of his ego being slowly crushed.
‘It’s like a series of alarms. That go off. In your timeline. I didn’t realize it till I was older,’ she paused, barely, punishing him another instant, ‘but he had been training me.’
‘Training you? For what?’
She smiled as she grabbed her purse and stood up, slightly clicking her heels for dramatic effect. ‘You’ll see.’