1.
As a child, I was that kid that everyone watched out for. I was known as Bill "the child of an alcoholic father". My dad was at the beginning a very interesting man who worked for Mr Sheildfeer, the only man that had more money than the mayor himself. But after mom died he lost himself on the way and the only thing he could do was to drink.

People didn't want me in school with the other kids because of my bad influence. But I did the best I could to ignore the fact that I had all their eyes right at me. I came every morning in the same clothes that was full of dirt, and the alcohol smell was stuck in the fabric, just like in the rest of our house. The school principal even tried to put me in a foster home, but it never went through. I think it was because I've got food on the table and clothes to wear but actually no one wanted me as their child. It would just be bad for their influence in a small town like this. Everyone knew each other and what they’re where doing. I think they knew that my dad had started to drink before he even knew it himself. We only have one grocery store, five pubs, one store you can buy both cloths and shoes from, a bank and a big clock tower where the mayor had his office.

Me and my family (if I can call him that) lived a few minutes out of town in the middle of the desert. There we have cows, pigs, horses and buffaloes. But after mom died I needed to take care of them or they would have died. I shopped their food and food to me and my dad, I worked late every night to make them happier than I was. The animals made me feel free and I understood them in a way dad never would understand, he couldn't even understand me. That's why I never left this place. I was stuck here but it was only because of the animals.

2.
In town, a circus had arrived, and I was thrilled when I realized that I had enough money to go and on the side of the big tent a little elephant kid hid from all the other people’s eyes who were right at him, I knew how he felt. I could just see the fear in his eyes when people started to shout when a man with big muscles, a red vest that was way to short and his pants almost look liked he had escaped from prison with black and white stripes, came. The line started to move and as more I could feel the smell of popcorn the further away I came from the elephant and his eyes who was filled with terror. The man with the big muscles took my ticket and send me into the tent there I could hear music, music that was filled with joy and the smell, not just popcorn I could smell candy, candy-floss, perfume and hot dogs. For just a minute I forgot about my alcoholic father, all of classmates and their stupid happy lives. But I also forgot who I was, right now I wasn´t that kid from road 57 at GreenWallter farm, I was just a boy who wanted to see the circus. I found my seat who was empty at both sides besides me, but it would soon be filled for those who also wanted to see the performance, they will, just soon.

When the clowns came in no one had taken the seats besides me and I started to remember who I was. How bad my life was, how much I hated the ones around me for having great lives and always had food on their tables that they didn´t had to take from the shelf with products that had gone out of date. I was so angry and sad that I couldn’t laugh at the stupid clowns or their stupid act. But at the end of their stupid act I couldn’t hold my mask, I couldn’t be angry anymore I was here to have fun and I had a lot of space just for myself. The clowns who now had started to throw water at each other backed slowly to the stage entrées and tapped just when they went out and disappeared. I just sat there and watch, I was so thrilled of all the acts and the performance that the end came to fast. But then I saw it again, the eyes. The eyes that hade more terror then before came in with a man beside him. I almost saw myself in that little elephant kid that it was almost horrifying, and I could smell the smell again. The smell I had on my cloths almost every day, day and night. The smell of my father’s breakdown and the smell that he didn´t care anymore. The alcohol smell got stronger and stronger for every minute and I could almost feel the taste of it on my tongue. I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t stay and see myself in that poor little elephant and I couldn’t hold in the tears in my eyes anymore from the strong smell of alcohol. I stood up from my seat and the seat slammed to its back like they do in the cinemas. But now everyone was staring right at me as I was in that circle in the middle of the circus. I fell ill, not just because of the alcohol taste in mouth also because of the terrified eyes who was pointed right at me. The eyes that now was on my face down there but on that little elephant’s body. The little elephant or should I say me was smiling on a very creepy way and kept saying one word. Just that word, that word that made me feel closer to the people´s staring eyes as I stood right in front of them. That word that made me feel so empty but also so alone as a boy ever can feel., “tick”.

“I know what you are thinking, everything that is happening right now is just my imagination and the elephant is just a trick from my own twisted head. But if I tell you that this wasn´t my own imagination or a stupid prank, that the elephant really was standing there in the middle of the circus. If you don’t believe me now I promise that the rest of my story will make you scared of your own shadow.”

For every tick, my head on that little scared elephant´s eyes got bigger and bigger and now it was like the time had stopped. No one was moving, the only thing that moved was the smile on my twisted face down there in the middle. That face that didn´t belong to me even if it was like watching myself in the mirror. I wanted to run, just run away from that smile and never come back. I wanted to run, now, but I couldn´t. My feet were frozen into the ground even if I forced myself to just take that first step, the first step to freedom. The freedom outside, there I could be able to breath the fresh air, feel the light from the sun and the world would begin spinning again as it always does, but in this moment, it didn´t. And that smile would be gone, even if it was stuck in my head. It would all be gone and in that moment my feet lifted from the ground and I started to run. I ran as fast as I could through the first line of seats, through the stand where they sell hotdogs and through the crowd of people who wanted to buy candy to their little children.

Nothing was the way it was when I first came through this big tent. I couldn´t smell the lovely smell of food, hear that happy music that almost made you dance or the feeling that I was as everyone else, it all had just disappeared in the same moment as the elephant´s eyes came in. Now I could just hear that sound of the elephant´s ticking and the smell again, the smell of alcohol that filled the whole tent, from the bottom to the roof. I needed to get out but I couldn´t, the faster I ran the further away from the exit I came and then it got silent, the ticking stopped. Now the elephant´s face was staring right at me and it talked. Just one sentence, but that voice. I will never forget that little elephant´s voice or should I say mine. My own voice from my own twisted face with the elephant´s body and it´s eyes filled with terror. That cracked voice, just sounding as a whisper “it´s scary to know how fast time actually flies”. I could hear my own heartbeats as I run through the circus entrance and out on the street without looking back.

3.
That evening I went straight up to bed without making myself dinner or check if my dad still were asleep on the cough after too much alcohol. Wouldn’t surprise me if he would try to go to the store tomorrow after more but it would as usually end up with him sitting on the ground after just a few meters from our driveway. But that thought disappeared as quickly as it came. Instead the thought fade slowly away and created the place I never would return to. The place with the elephant and me, I tried to get it out of my head, but I couldn’t. I took of my cloths and throw them into my laundry basket. I could smell the circus from them like I still was there, and it made afraid. Afraid of what that little me-elephant had said, even if it had no sense, for now. I jumped to bed and tried to sleep, but this night I was more awake then I ever had been before. I could hear the ticking from our clock in the hallway. “Tick, tick, tick, tick”, I couldn´t even hear the animals in the barn, only the ticking. With the elephant´s ticking in my ears and the circus in my head I finally feel asleep.

Bacon, I could smell bacon. But dad wasn´t able to use the kitchen. He hadn´t been there for years after mom´s death. The clock was 9.00am and the sun was rising through my bedroom window. It wasn’t a dream, I could still smell the fantastic smell of bacon, eggs and toast, I could almost feel it´s taste in my mouth as I ran through our hallway and in to the kitchen. As I was in the doorway I came to a halt. A woman in a black dress, high heels and a very expansive neckless held our frying pan as she laid out the food on one of our plates that mom had put away for special occasions. She turned around and presented herself as an old relative, but I had never seen her before. The truth was I had only meet my grandpa and grandma when they were alive. I sat down on one of our kitchen chairs and she put the plate and a glass of orange juice on the table. This was the first time in years I eat something else then conserve food and I didn´t had to make it myself. But then her face changed, she looked sad. “I know you love your dad, deep inside. Even if he is who he is and what he has become. I would never be as he was, I can promise you that. You will never feel alone again as long as I am here”. Why was she saying this? I loved my dad even if he was who he was, he is my dad. And what made her believe I was feeling alone? And I didn´t wanted her to stay, or did I? “It will might be some interesting first days, but we will come along at the end. Don’t you think so? Well, let´s get to the point. I know you wonder what I am doing here and why I am talking about your father.” She took a long pause before she started to talk again. Like she didn´t knew how she would say it, but I could handle it, I knew I would. What was she afraid of? “Your dad has been in an accident, I am so sorry. He was wandering on the middle of the road yesterday evening and got hit by a car. He is in the Walterby Hospital, but they don’t know if he will survive. He can only breath with help off a machine and they don´t think he would be able to breath without it. And as long it breath for him he will not wake up. I am so sorry, it´s scary to know how fast time actually flies”. I couldn´t breathe anymore, my dad. I wanted my dad, I could see him sleeping on the couch with his favorite whiskey in his hand. How drunk he was he always watched tv with me every Sunday evening and he held me in his arms. As I was the most precious thing he had, I could smell the awful stink of alcohol but right now and then it wasn´t awful, it was my dad. But then it came back. The elephant, that last sentence was exactly what the elephant had said in the circus tent and now her. Elsa, I think she said for just a couple of minutes ago when everything was normal, when my dad still was here. For me.

4.
The days went by and Elsa was kind, she cooked every meal you could think of from morning to night. She even read to me on the evenings and walked with me to school. She had even starting to renovate the house and bought me new clothes. But she let my mom and dad’s room be as it was. I liked to be there, to just breath in their smells like they were there with me. Sometimes I read books to them as Elsa did for me, other times a painted them paintings with animals and us as a family. But most of the time I talked to them. I talked about everything, school, Elsa, the animals and how much I missed them. Dad had died a few days ago, the doctors said he´s organs had given up and he was al destroyed from the alcohol. But I had it good with Elsa, she had opened a store in town and we had It great, but I feel so empty inside like something died with my dad. The elephant and it´s ticking still haunted me on the nights, but I never told Elsa, she wouldn´t believe me but with mom I could talk about it in hours.

I had one secrete I couldn´t even tell my mom about that elephant. When I walked to school or was in the barn or had dinner I could see it. I could see it right through the kitchen window or in the corridor or in one of the boxes in the barn. It just stood there and ticked. It was so real but at the same time so fake, it was like I where in that book that Elsa read to me once, Alice in wonderland. But I hadn´t fall through a hole in the ground and I hadn´t an evil red queen chasing after me, just a little elephant. Sometimes I closed my eyes and said for myself “it isn´t real, it isn´t real. It can´t harm you. When you open your eyes, it will be gone. Yes, it will be gone”. But it wasn´t gone, it had instead got closer than before, I could almost hear it breathing.

5.
It was a Wednesday, 29th October. The trees had now lost all their leaves to become a part of the dirt under our foots. I was cold, I needed to feed the animals more than I did under the summers. The horses had got new horse blankets from Elsa but now days I never saw here that much as before. When her store got a success, she could sometimes stay in the store for weeks just to make her customers happy. She always said, “success is money, and money is a success”. I never understand what she meant but I think she mean that money made us happy.

Today I was supposed to do the laundry, clean my bed and organize my room even if Elsa hadn´t been home for 5 days now, or was it 7? I couldn´t count anymore she was never home this days and sometimes she just got home because she had forgot something in her room. I started one machine and walked to the barn. I had been in the barn for several hours yesterday and just breath in the barn smell and brushed the horses. I had one I was more connected to then the others and it was a little horse that was smaller than the others, longer fur and was much more curious than the others. I had taught him a few tricks like follow me where ever I went, kiss, bow etc. She was a good horse even if she didn´t came along with the others, but she was mine. My mom gave me her on my birthday a few years ago and this year she will turn 10 years old. She was a big girl now, but not for me.

I started to clean up in the barn when I started to get dizzy and I could scent that smell. The smell of the alcohol and the strong scent of popcorn. “Tick, tick, tick”, the ticking got louder and louder for every tick it said and I could feel it breathing down my neck. “How fast did the time actually fly? I have heard every word, I have seen the same things, I have dream the same dreams, you will never get away from me I will always be behind your back”. I couldn’t move, it was like I were in that circus tent again and was stuck in the floor as the last time. I was afraid, I was afraid of that elephant like it was my own evil shadow.

Then everything got black and the elephant had punched me into the wall in front of me and it hurt. My head was spinning and pounding, and I could almost see the elephant´s shadow through all the shavings in the box. Red, the shaving started to get red, it was turning red from the blood which ran from my head. On stumpy legs I got up from the floor with my eyes pointed right at the elephant that now was more like me then it was the last time. “Ha, you are just as weak as the last time we meet, if not even weaker”. This time I got mad, why was I so afraid of him and why did it not want to leave me alone? I took one step forward, but it was like I had been stuck in quicksand and for every time I took one step closer the elephant I sank more and more down to the floor. Now I was so I close that I could feel it´s breath on my cheek. It was cold as ice and his mouth was as big as it could be, and it made me scared. But then I saw it, the eyes. It was as black as the darkest night but I couldn´t see the terror like I could before. Only the darkness that almost dragged me into its dark claws. But it didn´t made me afraid, not as before at the circus. The claws released me from the dark and the floor let go of my body. I saw that the stable door had got open and the autumn leaves flew in the smooth October wind. I started to run, I ran as fast as I could and into the little grove that was in front of the stable. I ran through the trees, I could hear the bird’s songs as I heard the elephant´s ticking behind my back. Then I was trapped, I was trapped in front of our big pond that now had a thin crust of ice on it.

The birds stopped to sing, and everything got quiet as I heard twigs brake and the sun started to get down and the darkness slowly swallowed the trees. But the eyes, who was even darker then the darkest night came out from the trees still ticking as it always did but this time the ticking was louder, and the elephant sounded angrier and it´s head was all twisted up as it was smiling to the woods at it´s right even if it´s eyes was looking at me. With small footsteps the elephant got closer and closer. For every step it took I took one step back and now I was right behind the pond that mom always wanted me stay away from when I was a little child. It was so deep that you couldn´t see the bottom of it, all you could see was your own blurry shadow. “Do you think you can run away from me, I am you! I am your fear as I am your biggest nightmare and I will always be behind you and feed on your fear”. I wanted it to go away, I wanted the nightmare to disappear, I just want to get rid of all of this. I want to sleep at night without hearing the ticking, without waking up with the elephant standing beside my bed. “PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALNOE, LEAVE ME ALONE!” I screamed as loud as I could as my tears ran along my cheeks. Now the elephant walked around me as I took one step forward from the pond edge. “The terror in your face is the strength in me, if you look down I will be there standing right in front of you, if you look up I will be hanging from the roof, look at your right or left and I will sit there and smile at you were ever you are at any time”. Now I got my chance to get free from the terror once and for all and I took it. I pushed the elephant from the edge and into the cold water with its black claws who grabbed the elephant and dragged its terror to the bottom far, far down where it couldn´t harm me again, I will never see the creepy smile, the black eyes or hear it´s ticking again, I thought…

6.
…3 days, it was 3 days ago I threw that elephant in the pond that late October evening and I haven´t heard the ticking since then. It was over, or should I say I thought it was over, I wished that it was over until I heard, “…Tick, tick, tick”, “Do you remember me, or should I say it´s scary to know how fast time actually flies, and I will always be behind your back.”

The kitchen had never been so tiny like it was right now, in this moment. I couldn´t breathe anymore. It was like that little elephant had taken all the air the same moment it opened its mouth. I couldn´t stand up anymore, my knees couldn´t carry me any longer through this nightmare. The floor was cold as ice but I didn´t care anymore. “Crack”, a piece of glass cut my right cheek and the small drops of blood shoved up on the floor. “Crack” I could feel how the broken plate got stuck in my back, but it was like everything happened in slow-motion. I could see how my father’s whisky glasses broke into several pieces when they hit the floor and even if I didn´t hear the elephant I could see how it laughed in front of me as I was screaming from the pain.

“I couldn’t just let it kill me, I needed to fight back, I need to take control over my own nightmare. I couldn´t give up just like my father, I am what my father wasn´t. I AM A WARRIOR!” I tried to get up but my legs couldn´t move and my back hurt. The table, if I just could crawl to the table then I maybe would be able to drag myself up. My arms were covered with blood from all the glass pieces on the floor, but I wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. I pulled myself up with help from the table and I grabbed our bread knife that had been put on the kitchen counter.

“Did you think that you could let the dark pound make me go away? The darkness only makes me stronger! I am not that easy to get rid of and I can see how your fear is growing more and more every day because I feel more alive than ever, thanks to you! Dark, the light will change to darkness and you will be it´s only victim, tick, tock”. The elephant disappeared into the dark, but the floor was the reality of what really had happened one minute ago. The white clinker floor was red of blood and pieces of glass covered it. “Knock, knock” No, not now, she couldn´t be home now. The last thing I remembered was Elsa´s scared face when she saw all the blood and how I collapsed in her arms.

7.
“Beep, Beep, Beep” the machines beeping was the alarm that I still was alive. I could see persons in white coats and blue clothes run outside my hospital room window. Elsa wasn´t here, I think she was in her store to make all her sad customers pay for things they didn´t needed just because they felt sorry for her, or me. “Zap” everything got black like the electricity just stopped working and the sun had disappeared like a fallen star. The only sound I could hear was the beeping from the monitor, I hope. The people who had been out there were gone and I was the only one here, I was the victim of the darkness.

I got up from the bed and took of every single needle they had put in me when I heard a big laughter. The laughter from the elephant but I wasn´t afraid I wanted to be a warrior like Batman or Superman. I opened the door slowly and I could feel my heart beating in my chest. The corridor was empty, it was like being in one of those horror movies that was played in an abandoned mental hospital, but this time I was the main character. I had so much going on in my head that I didn’t realized that I had walked down to the hospital’s morgue. Darkness, instrument and blood were now around me as I whispered my mother’s name in hope that she would save me from this nightmare.

“If she wouldn´t had come home I would have finished you right there and then, but you are a lucky little boy. But this time you will not be able to run, you would only run further into the claws of the dark like you did to me but this time you will never be able to get up”.

I turned around and fell over something big. In the dark I could see a shape of a body beside me and had now his face two centimeters from mine. I started to scream and pushed myself back to the wall. It wasn´t just a random person, I could recognize that face like I had seen it yesterday. I crawled closer and saw the face of my dead father, the man that still smelled like alcohol so strong that all the other scents disappeared. I was so scared that I couldn´t scream. I wanted my dad back, I wanted my mom.

Like the time stood still I could now hear the ticking from the elephant and this time I took all the instruments that laid on the floor and throw them around me. I could hear them scrambling on the floor but the elephant´s ticking got louder and louder and now I could see him. But he was more like me now, he had not just my face, he had my body, my hair and eyes. The only thing that wasn´t “me” was the big ears and it´s grey color.

Blood, my hospital t-shirt started to get red right were a sharp surgical knife had hit my stomach. I fell to the ground and I could feel how my lungs started to get filled with blood as it came up through my mouth. “I was you, until I broke free, but this time I am going to take it all back from what you took from me. I have always been with you, I was that big scary monster under your tiny little bed. But I made you meaner, weaker and more murderous, I made you to who you are. You killed your own father that night you know, you dragged him from your parking lot to the street and then went to bed like nothing ever even had happened, happened, happened. The words got smaller and smaller as the elephant became more and more like me and then the stars took over the dark and I died. I died in that morgue a late November night 1943.

The doctors in the mental hospital say that I suffer delusions and schizophrenia, but I know what happened that night and I know that the elephant kills me over and over again. I will never wake up from this nightmare, I am the victim of the darkness and I will live it for the rest of my life and see the elephant take my body, losing my parents and fight in a war filled with blood. I will never be able to break free from the elephant’s curse that hunts me every day and every night that always ends up with me dying in a pool of blood. But I will never forget my first death that November night 1943 and I will never grow up from my childish body.