THE HANDS OF TIME

The Hands OF Time-by Lucina Cuccio Time lived in a lost castle steeped on a mountain top. All day time would weave baskets of fruit for those he wanted to seduce. Once their souls were bought he kept them in oblivion made of false parties, forcing them to dance until they almost died. Time had many forms but his soul was evil and inexorable. He had no pity and could buy anyones’ soul. Implacable with people, cruel with animals, he passed eternity laughing about the end of life. Nothing had ever stopped him. Every person he kidnapped and brought into his domain aroused in this monster a certain kind of interest. Many men for their power, women for their beauty and animals because he realized that their numbers were diminishing rapidly. Time enjoyed himself lengthening the minutes of those who suffered and accelerating the days of those who were happy. In this way, much of life ended quickly and time enjoyed watching it fade away rapidly. When he decided that a persons’ life had to end in the dance of death, he made them taste the sweet fruits of the baskets .From that minute every living being lost in the oblivion of unconsciousness fell prey to tiredness, hunger and thirst. Time had no heart and was very vain. One day he took on the form of a delicate young girl and walked among men. He was looking for his prey when he spotted a young hunter who had just killed a deer. The animal had not been quite dead so the young man had finished it off with his bare hands. Time was fascinated with this kind of cruelty and decided to acquaint himself personally with the young man. So under the guise of this delicate young girl, he walked up to the hunter and presented himself as a young country girl. The youth was dazzled by such beauty and a few hours later, captured by the conversation and laughter between them, they started towards his hut. Time had never felt so emotional. He hid the basket of fruit and from that day lived in the hunters home with him. The hunter wanted to marry the young girl and the whole village turned up for the wedding. And so they were husband and wife. After some time, time realized “she” was going to have a child. “She” was flabbergasted at such a miracle. Never would “she” have thought that the body “she” had adopted could actually fall pregnant! So “she” ran to look for the husband in the forest to tell him the good news. But the hunter, taking another path, arrived at the hut before his wife, and starving, looked frantically here and there for something to eat. Opening the chest where he thought he would find the dried meats, under plates and pots and pans, he discovered the basket of fruits. With great gusto he tasted an apple and from that moment fell into a strange oblivion and began dancing around the house. A few minutes later Time returned home and found her husband like an automatum sweating and tired dancing around agitating himself like a madman. Petrified and surprise, she immediately noticed the basket and the bitten apple that had fallen on the floor. All time’s efforts to nullify the very rules he had established were in vain.Time lost ‘her” husband, who after a few days was struck down by thirst and tiredness, as well as the child in “ her” womb. “She” felt disappointment and pain in those days in the hut watching “her” husband dance himself to death. Upset and desperate, Time returned to his mission even more cruel and ruthless than before. But in the following decades, he never again assumed the form of a woman. Humanity realized that in the last decade the days flew by as if the minutes had been shortened. Many people blamed the modern era and the frenetic rhythms of life, but in reality, Time had decided that the existence of humanity had to be ultimately shortened.