Tick-tock

The clock ticks, tick-tock, tick-tock, the crocodile is heard before it is seen. She approaches the man with burning hunger in her eyes, but it's a hunger that dies as she draws closer, for she sees the man is not a Captain Hook. He doesn't have his seasoned odour – he looks too young, he smells too ripe – and his body, like hers, ticks like a clock. His tick-tock however is muffled by flesh and layers of clothing. She'd have to bite off his hand to tell if he would be good to eat.

She conceals herself in the shade of some trees and listens: tick-tock, tick-tock goes her clock, tick...tock...tick...tock goes the man's. His is so slow. She wonders if he might have crocodile genes. She has heard of such things, of experiments done by men looking for youth and vigour; they were said to believe it could be possessed by eating crocodile meat and drinking the broth, but that was many many years ago. This man however could be an descendant of that kind.

How could she tell?

She'd have to get a closer look at his face, for that's where it was said change took place. And if that was the case, she'd recognise the crocodile in him.

*

The man has heard the different ticking: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock but does not know where it comes from for there are trees and bushes all around the river. He knows however a crocodile is near, has him in sight. He is unafraid; he has wrestled many in his time and darted some before the kill. Science made him a crocodile hunter; the clock is what he's after. Just a few more years.

He has not got long though, for his current clock is slowing. Tick...tock....tick...tock...tick the time allotted is never enough. Seventy wasn't, nor eighty and now he's ninety five, and all his changes are mainly taking place on the inside. Subtle changes only but still. Time is running, running, running out. Though his skin is still fresh and plump and his mind agile and his muscles strong. And he looks young, unnaturally young.

This man has had his youth and more. And yet still wants more. He does not see what it costs and what it costs him still. Life not lived but lost in the pursuit of youth. Youth was always the goal even when he was in his own, only then it was about procuring it for other people and only later once he felt his prime had been reached did it become about extending his own. He reached his prime quickly. Men of experimentation do that. It's a law. Run some tests and if there are good results run them on yourself. Men seeking eternal youth and agelessness are selfish, and famous for manipulating women. They want fame, they want wealth, they want women and they want to live forever. More than women? Women too want some of these things but differently, and nobody's sure if women would want them at all if men didn't convince them of it.

This man though would have this croc and would take its strong tick-tock, tick-tock.

*

The crocodile hasn't moved from its hiding place nor seen the man's face; the man waits and watches, alert to any movement in the trees and bushes and the tick-tock, the steady tick-tock rhythm so unlike his own. One false move and either the man or the crocodile could lose their life, or in the man's case at the very least a limb. Statistics would say it's the man's to lose, but they'd be wrong for these two are more evenly matched, since the man is more crocodile than man. His features have already altered to include that of a crocodile grin, with the exception also that he is determined to live as long as a crocodile. The crocodile has no such desires nor such determination. The crocodile has very simple tastes. But life is never fair and rarely kind and so one will get what it wants and the other won't. After the deed's done, one will go back to the water and the fishes, and one will search for another tick-tock, tick-tock.

Picture credit: Captain Hook and Crocodile, Peter Pan.

Written November 2019.