Countdown to Midnight

Goodbye 2013. You will be missed. This is me wishing everyone a Happy New Year

The only thing amiss about the man was the fact that he had a ton of wrinkles. He looked about 40-something , he was possibly in his late thirties. And he had a lot of wrinkles.

His job was a simple one. He was for want of a better word, nothing but a desk clerk. Granted, he had people looking at the stuff on his desk well before and all he did was pass it on to his superior, a man who remained anonymous.

The word superior is perhaps misused here, as basically, a number of partners handled everything to do with an organization called WORLD. Yes WORLD.

Today, for example our wrinkled hero awoke, had a leisurely shower, shaved and as always took a long hard look at his face. At last count, there were 2013 wrinkles on his face. He began to contemplate the 2013 years of WORLD. They had had their problems no doubt, what with politics, wars and terrorists, not to mention the usual ineffectual lazy workers that each organization happens to have.

The thing is that today was a very important day. It was in fact the very last day. This was the day that everything from the past year was evaluated by our hero and mistakes or other issues were made note of. Ergo, he had a busy day ahead of him.

He began with the data that his colleague Death had placed in his in tray. He smiled because along with Death, there was another file from Birth. Statistically, Death and Birth should be almost equal. 

Unfortunately, owing to a bunch of disasters and other circumstances this year, equilibrium had not been maintained. He made a mental note to speak to Mother Nature about her storms. He doubted this would help, because she had every right to be pissed at WORLD because of late they had taken her for granted. Unless that changed, things were dreary indeed.

From the Health and Disease department, things seemed OK. No major epidemics apart from some bird flu, that had been contained. Crime had however risen and once again our hero mused, some words needed to be had with the concerned parties, namely Law and Order.

Perchance, he happened to glance at his watch, which ironically went both ways. He alone had the luxury of owning such a watch. Actually, owning is incorrect, since he made the watch himself. He found that the day was almost at its end and in a few hours, WORLD would enter its 2014^th year.

He shut the files and stashed them away. He got up from his desk and went to the bathroom again. After he had done his business, he poured himself a neat Scotch and soda.

Father Time smiled and watched the dial of his clock. In a few hours, there would be a new wrinkle on his face. A New Year would be upon WORLD. The slate wiped clean and the pens refilled with ink.

Father Time waited, and with him all of WORLD waited and watched the clocks countdown to midnight.

The Bilge Master