Drabble Wednesday: Time for a New Year

Three time related drabbles to kick off the new year. Enjoy.

Tick of Time

Where does time go, when it runs down, when the seconds tick off and fly out of your reaching grasp? Does it vanish, engulfed by entropy or relativity? Or will you find particles of it at the end of the universe, waiting to be found? Is time the stuff of stars, particles of galactic dust, ever shifting with the cosmic winds?
Or is it buried under the detritus of life, shattered by the accumulating weight of history, swallowed by the hourglass sands, lost beneath your feet, pulsing a faint dying heartbeat?
Where does time go, when it leaves your grasp?

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Lost

She touched the brass casing of the pocket watch, running a finger along the metal. Where did it come from, half buried on the beach? A forgotten heirloom, or something carelessly discarded? It didn’t look like flotsam tossed out of the sea.
It looked like… but it couldn’t be his watch. He was dead. Lost at sea.
She listened to the tick, tick of the mechanism, as she closed her eyes, fading into memories. Of his scent, his smile the warm touch of his hand in hers.
And for a moment, she swore she heard his voice call her name…

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A Remnant

“What is it, Mama? It’s pretty.”
“Don’t touch, it sweetie. It’s a tainted thing. From them.”
The child hissed and ran back to his mother, afraid. “What’s it doing on our beach?”
“Washed in from the sea, most like. One of their boats went down maybe, or something they tossed. If there’s any of them still out there. Could be years old, now back. It’ll wash out again, if you leave it.”
The child nodded and went home with his mother, never knowing. The sea was giving up its dead and those that fled the sickness were finally coming home.