Marbles

     The 8:45 was allergic to her own hands, itchy welts rose up, multiplied as she scratched, her body literally crossed out again and again and again in self-denial; he couldn't even look.
     11:30 couldn't feel his tongue whenever he said the word "love". The frightened muscle dropped dead in his mouth. The patient's wife was filing for divorce.
     12:00 had anger issues and carried a rag mop everywhere she went. Arrests were frequent and often followed by trips to the emergency room.
     2:00 showed up every day at 9 am and waited.
     5:15 - this was something special. If you stacked up all the psych texts, all the journals, articles, references and case studies, you still couldn't reach the branch that this cuckoo-bird rested on. 5:15 was bald and frightened of his own head - sweating, running-in-place nightmare frightened - of his own head. The pale lump of it terrified him. He didn't have to even see it in the reflection of a shop window, or, heaven forbid, a mirror - just knowing it was sitting up over his eyebrows made him moist with fear. Looking at his toes gave him a jolt because it was a short skin-walk to the terror-dome.
     5:15 had some sweet life before his hair began to recede; a terrific career as a race-car driver, and horticulturist of note; the guy - you knew him by name - had a line of organic pastry shops across the country, one wife, six kids, and fourteen homes across the globe.
     Then his hair began to recede. Each hair lost was matched by the loss of a marble, and every marble that rolled away drew with it a bit of that piled up fame and fortune.
     Now, a full year and a half later, 5:15 is down to his last few hairs, which combined, amount to just about one last marble, one last dollar, and one last scream.
     5:15 was a pip. A real pip. He'd be sad to see him go.