It was Indrit Farka’s voice with a metallic ring to it coming from a Braille Quartz Clock on the wall. Barbara shivered violently. She remembered that he had this strange fascination with clocks that recorded greetings in a human voice and called them out with the time. She never really understood why her former husband had this weird fetish of recording his voice on clocks. Once she had questioned him about the talking clocks and he had replied that he was lonely, that the house was quiet and the clocks filled his home with human voices.
Suddenly another clock chimed loudly and a message floated eerily through the stifling room to her ears.
“I bought this clock to remind you that I love you even beyond death.”
Barbara spun around looking to see if the voice had come from the same clock. Fear crawled up her spine. She began to think that it was a mistake to come alone to his apartment. But she had to search it herself before she brought anyone else in here. She did not want to stir up more claims to ownership or have anyone question her right to Indrit’s possessions. She had to find the hidden diamonds and golden rings she knew Indrit used to buy with his earnings.
Indrit had once told her that he was putting his money into gold and diamonds as an investment. He did not trust the banks. She knew he used to work as a mechanic in an auto garage seven days a week. He lived alone and had no addictive expensive habits like alcohol or smoking. When he was lonely he used to call Barbara. But of late she had not been answering him. She was seeing someone else and had recently moved into her boyfriend’s home. That was why, when the police contacted her, she told them that she had nothing to do with Indrit Farka.
Barbara shook her head trying to get rid of the uneasy feeling that was now centered on the back of her neck. It felt like she was being watched. Like the clocks ticking on every wall turned their faces to look at her.
She left the house quickly and went to her car and opened the trunk. She got a tool kit which she had packed with a hammer, shovel, screwdriver, pliers and a hand saw. She entered the apartment again and looked around very carefully. Where should she look first?
“I better think like him. If I want to hide something in my house, which place would be the best, so no one would find it? If I were him, I would hide the gold under the wooden floor. No one could think that they were walking on gold. I better look for loose floor boards,” she spoke aloud.
She found reassurance in the sound of her own voice and went to work on a loose floor board. She took the hammer and smashed it on the floor. She heard a dry bang. The hammer did not do any serious damage. She hit the floor again and used a lever, to open the crack in the wood. She was engrossed in loosening the wooden floorboard when the sound of a human voice came from the direction of the bedroom.
“It is now 5.15 p.m.” It was clearly Indrit’s thick accented voice. A layer of cold sweat broke out on Barbara’s forehead.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed and looked with anger and desperation toward the room where the voice had come from. She wiped the sweat off her brow and closed her eyes for a moment.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you record your voice in all these clocks?” she yelled aloud, but no one answered from the empty rooms.
A faint movement of air blew a lock of her hair across her face. She swung around startled, flailing her arms in defense. The kitchen window was slightly open and the netting had been ripped. That must have been the window that one of the neighbors used to get in to investigate the foul smell coming out of the apartment. The police had said that the neighbor had cut the net with a pocket knife and found Indrit Farka still lying on his couch and the TV was on. Indrit had been holding the remote controller in his left hand and his eyes were half open. The neighbor had dialed 911 and when the paramedics arrived they took his body to the morgue. They said that Indrit had been dead for two weeks.
A deep booming chime sounded from the bedroom. This time there were echoing chimes from other clocks on the walls of the hallway and the living area as well. It sounded like the chimes and then his voice were coming at her from all directions.
“Good evening, it is 5.30 p.m.,” came from one clock. Then the other clocks picked it up in an eerie echo effect.
“I will follow you everywhere. I will be with you wherever you go.” His voice echoed through the rooms and swirled around her. It was as if he were flying around her head, speaking from behind her. When she swung around the sound was still behind her.
“I will chase you, chase you, chase you...” Then “Why did you leave me, leave me, leave me…” The echoes spun around her making her dizzy. “Why did you take my son from me, from me, from me…” The voice was a whisper now “You left me alone, alone, alone…”
Barbara’s head was spinning. She fell on her knees, pressing her hands to her ears to shut out the sound of his voice.
“This is crazy. This cannot be happening. He is dead. Dead and gone,” she gasped out, holding tight to the hammer in her hand, ready to use it as a weapon.
As her glance went to the ceiling, her eyes narrowed on the ceiling tiles. They were uneven. Her eyes gleamed. She could move that easily. She pushed a chair towards an uneven section in the corner.
“Either I find the treasure, or I’ll die trying,” Barbara said out loud gritting her teeth. She began ripping the ceiling apart checking to see if there was a stash of gold. But she saw nothing. The drywall fell and the gaping hole in the ceiling widened.
“It is so easy to become a bad person, but so hard to be good.” Indrit Farka’s voice echoed in Barbara’s head. She had heard him saying this many times when they lived together. She had not agreed with him. She had told him that she would do anything to be able to take care of her son.
The clocks chimed six o’clock.
“I am tired and weak,” said Indrit Farka’s voice. “I can barely speak. I see you going in and out of these empty rooms. You can’t believe that I am dead when my voice tells you the correct time. I may have passed on, but I am still here.”
Barbara’s teeth were chattering with fright. The same light wind coming through the open window seemed to be carrying the hushed words to her ear. Ghostly words like ghostly fingers caressing her ears.
"Do you remember when we used to live together? They were happy times, when we used to wake up and go to work. You used to make me hot lemon tea, which I would drink all at once till my throat burned.”
"Yes,” whispered Barbara stricken with horror. It was not the clocks speaking any longer. Or was it? Where was his voice coming from?
“Do you remember how you used to spread butter on my toast and put feta cheese and sliced black olives on it, and I ate like never before.
“Then you would kiss me on my lips, as I was trying to put my clothes on and rush to the car to go to work. Do you remember, Barbara?
“We were happy together Barbara, until the day you left. You never told me why.
You never came back. You would not speak to me. You would not let my son speak to me. He loved me, but you kept him away from me. Why, Barbara, why?” The words were swirling around and around her. Coming at her from all directions.
Barbara got to her feet fighting to stay calm. She tried to shake off the hallucinations.
They had to be hallucinations, she insisted to herself. This could not be happening. Indrit Farka was dead and she was entitled to his money which she needed for her son. It was not a crime to look around for valuables that her son’s father had left behind. She was so sure that Indrit had left something of value behind.
“Good evening, it is 7 p.m.,” she heard his voice once again. This time she could not figure out where the voice was coming from. It wasn’t coming from the living room or from the bedroom. It was coming from the kitchen area. She entered the kitchen slowly fearing she would be confronted by a ghost. She sighed when she saw another talking clock.
“It is 15 degrees Centigrade. It is cold. It was always cold when you were not here. I missed the warmth of humans, of your warm body. I was sad, because I missed your eyes, which were like broken mirrors. I could see myself reflected in a thousand shining pieces.”
Barbara spun around, seeing nothing, then backed out into the hall. A huge clock on the wall lit up as she moved in front of it.
“Today is September 15,” Indrit’s voice came from the clock. Barbara looked haunted as she stared up at the clock. She knew it was October. The clock had stopped on September 15, the day of Indrit’s death. But the clock’s timing mechanism was still working only the date was not changing.
“You will not find anything here,” the words seemed to be blowing in from the kitchen window with the torn net. “These talking clocks are the only treasures you will find here. These clocks are my link to you; they will whisper my words to you.
“There is no treasure here for you. There never was.” The words whispered swirled around her, chilling her to the bone.
“Stop it! Stop it!” screamed Barbara. She kicked a kitchen cabinet door open, yanked the door off its rusty hinge and placed it over the window, trying to shut out the breeze blowing in. It was then she realized that even though the apartment was ventilated because of the open window, the stench of death and disinfectant was still overpowering. It was as if she were standing in a butcher’s shop.
One of the clocks on the wall clicked and Indrit’s voice flowed from it.
“There is no treasure. There never was. Come here now, come closer to this clock.”
Barbara didn’t know if the clock was moving towards her or she was being drawn towards it. But she found herself staring at the huge mirrored dial of a Quantum Digital Clock.
“Come closer. Put your lips to this clock and give me your breath. Your lips on my lips, my love. I am the air that you breathe, this cold air that enters your lungs and freezes you. Breathe my darling! I am in you. You will be with me. Forever. We will never be parted.”
Barbara felt her throat being squeezed with invisible hands. The clocks were chiming all together. Louder and louder. They were in her head pounding against her brain. She collapsed unable to breathe. White foam frothed out of her mouth. The foam turned yellowish. Suddenly she saw the foam turn into a figure. It was Indrit Farka and he was wearing white, the same suit he wore when they got married, at their fake wedding. Real or fake, they had been married and had had a son.
Indrit was smiling and his hand was held out to her, as he had held it out to her at the courthouse before they were married.
She stretched out her hand and touched his fingers.
The last words she heard were “there was no treasure here for you to find. It is all in a trust for Jeffery. He loved me. It will be all his, only his, when it is time.”
Bio
Përparim Kapllani (P.I.Kapllani) was born in the city of Elbasan, Albania. He came to Canada in November 2000 along with his wife Raimonda and five- year- old son Klajd, bringing with him many untold stories. Left without his dad who committed suicide at the age of 43 years old, 10 years old Perparim thought to leave his family (the stepfather, mom, and siblings), in order to join a military high school, which he did at the age of 14. He graduated as Anti- Aircraft Gun Artillery Officer 8 years after and earned another University degree from the University of Tirana, in Literature and Albanian Language. As an alien from another country, he struggled to find a job, working in different pizza places and became so good at it, as he opened his own shop "Albany Gourmet Pizza''. He works there seven days a week, open to close, for ten years straight, without giving up on his first love: creative writing. He says that he might be eligible for a Guinness record. English is not his first language, but this obstacle didn't stop him from realizing his dream: becoming an English author in Canada.
His most recent book in English is "The Wild Boars"-2016. "Genti" -the king of the Ardians- is a play in Albanian Language and it was published this year. "The Last Will", a novel based on Çamëria genocide was published by IOWI in 2013. "Beyond the Edge" is a collection of short stories published in December 2010 by IOWI. An English version of his play "Queen Teuta of Illyria" was published by "In Our Words" in 2008. An Albanian version was published in 2014.
His short stories appear in three anthologies: "Canadian Voices", Bookland Press, "The Literary Connection", and "Courtney Park Connection", IOWI. His novella "The Hunter" was shortlisted by Quattro Books for The Ken Klonsky novella contest in 2015.
He is the author of five books in Albanian language and had worked as a journalist for "Ushtria", the Albanian Army Newspaper and "Shekulli', a daily newspaper. Some publications appeared in "Spekter" magazine and other local papers in Albania.
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