September 23, 2021:
I remember those clocks so vividly.
Identical. Machine-produced on proverbial assembly lines — clones — relentlessly the same. Black hands on white faces, with red slow-motion second hands. Installed — perhaps by regulation? — at the same height in the same location above the same chalkboard in every classroom in the land. By sad individuals in overalls whose work lives certainly seemed machine-like.
I would practice mentally pushing the hands along. What if telekinesis were true? I will find it, if it is. Faster, faster, faster, faster. Move, move, move, move. Motherfucker. Move. Get your weight off my feet.
They said this was intelligence. That I should return to the gifted program I'd emphatically rejected. It wasn't. It was an uncomfortable wooden desk with an armrest and a clock on the wall interfering with childhood. Give me a fukkin' bike to ride. I'll learn something useful.