{"id":4685,"date":"2017-03-27T17:24:22","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T17:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4685"},"modified":"2017-03-27T17:27:23","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T17:27:23","slug":"the-man-who-paints-time-claudia-serea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4685","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Paints Time – Claudia Serea"},"content":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s inside the clock in the airport. Only the hour hand is painted in. The man dips his brush in the paint can and traces a long black line, uniting the center of the clock with the figure 12. Now the clock has a minute hand.
\n 
\nHe\u2019s tall and handsome, although I can\u2019t see his face. He cleans the glass surface with
\na squeegee. Oblivious to all the passengers, he bends and washes a rag in the bucket.
\nUp again, he wipes off the black minute hand he just painted. The passengers look at each other: what is this guy doing inside the clock? And why did he wipe off the minute hand?
\n 
\nThe man washes the rag in the bucket. If you ever wonder where does time go, well, let me tell you: it\u2019s in the white bucket. He notices a spec left on the clock\u2019s surface and cleans it up with his sleeve. Unhurried, he loads his brush with black paint and slowly paints a new long line from the center to the right of the figure 12. It\u2019s one minute after 12.
\n 
\nThe passengers are captivated. He ignores everyone and makes sure the black minute hand is perfect, with no wavy edges. He\u2019s taking his time\u2014he\u2019s a perfectionist, that\u2019s why. Then, with quick moves, he wipes the line with the squeegee. What happened? It wasn\u2019t straight enough? What a waste of time. The man next to me returns to his paper, mumbling.
\n 
\nI get up and circle behind the huge clock. No one is there. There is no stair, no door.
\nThe clock is so thin no one could fit inside. Back in the waiting room, I take my seat and look up: there he is, absorbed in his task, painting another minute.
\n 
\n 
\nClaudia Serea\u2019s poems and translations have appeared in Field, New Letters, 5 a.m., Meridian, Word Riot, Apple Valley Review,<\/em> among others. She is the author of Angels & Beasts <\/em>(Phoenicia Publishing, Canada, 2012), A Dirt Road Hangs From the Sky <\/em>(8th House Publishing, Canada, 2013), To Part Is to Die a Little<\/em> (Cervena Barva Press, 2015) and Nothing Important Happened Toda<\/em>y (Broadstone Books, 2016). Serea co-hosts The Williams Readings poetry series in Rutherford, NJ, and she is a founding editor of National Translation Month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s inside the clock in the airport. Only the hour hand is painted in. The man dips his brush in the paint can and traces a long black line, uniting the center of the clock with the figure 12. Now the clock has a minute hand.   He\u2019s tall and handsome, although I can\u2019t see [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[244],"class_list":["post-4685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-the-persistence-of-time-by-salvadore-dali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4685"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}