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It's Love O'Clock
Emma had always been my best friend. Since high school, we’ve done everything together. Our parents have been best friends since we were in kindergarten. We attended the same school, we always partnered for the science fair even though I didn’t like it, we were complete rivals on the spelling bee each year, and we sang together on every Valentine’s Day talent show. We were inseparable, until today. Her Marker is 6 minutes from hitting zero. The Marker is the timer that everybody has embed in their wrists since the day we are born, which is a series of numbers that count down until the exact moment we will meet our soul mate.
She’s not even paying attention to me right now. Her Marker is now on 5:42 minutes until “she meets the one”. We’re walking down 5fth Avenue on our way home going down the stairs to the subway station.
“Can you actually believe it? This is happening, this is finally it.” She said.
“Are you sure you want to go down to the subway station?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know why, I just have this feeling you know? That I should be there.”
No I don’t know, I thought. I don’t like this, I’m thinking of all things that could go wrong right now. For instance the guy can be an old man, wrinkled and ugly, or a famous band guitarist with a lot of girls crushing on him, a rich lawyer from Harvard who is in the Most Wanted FBI list or a hippie that hasn’t washed his hair in days. Either way you are supposed to love the person that the Marker or destiny has chosen for you. But we’re already here, so the only thing that’s left is waiting for what will happen next. My stomach is made a mess; I can’t imagine how hers is. Time seems to go by so slow. She can’t stop looking at her clock. It is on 3:55. We finally get to the bottom of the stairs, and for some reason, the subway station is empty. It is completely isolated. We are the only ones standing there waiting for the subway. Could it be? Her marker is soon to be zero and I start getting a crazy thought that maybe I am the one for her, I mean, her marker is just about to end and I am the only person around. We stood motionless for a while; no one seems to come down for at least 1 and a half minutes. I'm getting more and more excited by the second. I turn to look at her and her face is pale white, she starts to freak out. Her clock is at 2:15.
“We have to go up, go somewhere else!” she screamed and started rushing towards the stairs.
“Emma no wait! Maybe this is what it’s supposed to happen! Emma!”
She stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?” she said. She turned to look her Marker; from where she was I couldn't see how much time was left, so I just started talking.
“I think that there is no one here for a reason, maybe, maybe if we just…” I couldn't even finish the sentence. There he was, a guy, normal looking, running down the stairs and when he saw Emma he just froze. She turned around. I just knew it, I could feel it, her Marker had reached zero. They stood there for a second, which to me was eternity. All hopes had gone away by now, I just wanted to go hide somewhere but for some reason I couldn't stop looking. Suddenly the station got filled with people but they where still not moving. He was the one for her, they were meant for each other, you could just look at them and know. I turned around and started walking to the train, the doors closed as i saw them approaching each other. Finally after what seemed hours, the train moved. Every single fiber of my body felt cold. Was it always supposed to be this way? Density is just so confusing. Confusing and cruel. Want to know why? Because from the moment I met her, my Marker had always been at zero.
