Watches

Do you really think they’ll make it?
Does it really matter? What I think about it? You know what the alternatives are… Even they know it. Some of them, anyway… Those who agree with Darwin. Either… or…
I know, I know… After all, this is the umpteenth time we’ve had this conversation… If they make it, we’re here to welcome them. If they don’t, we’ve lost our time watching them…
They’ve wasted our time, actually. They’re the ones calling the shots… we’re here only to observe…
Yeah, except for they don’t see the whole picture! They don’t know about us, for starters. And they don’t know what we’re here for…

Nobody asked me, yet, ‘why do you still keep this clock on the wall? It’s arms never move, the pendulum is frozen…’

Those who really know me have learned that I hate ‘ticking’. And that I’m rather accurate at telling time without any instruments.
My son’s friends – the only ‘other’ people who come into our house, haven’t noticed. Or cared enough to ask…

Yet the story is interesting enough.

The ‘object’ was manufactured in the USSR. More than 50 years ago.
I’ve no idea whether my parents bought it or it was gifted to them. Point is that I remember it ticking, and striking every half hour, during my entire childhood. Until I took my fate into my own hands!
Into my left hand, actually.
I sneaked it into the clock and bent the three rods inside away from the hammers.
The clock continued to strike but the sound was muted. Still audible but way less annoying.

My parents said nothing. Maybe they didn’t like it either…
The ticking remained, though. But the difference from the previous situation was so huge that it didn’t bother me anymore.

After a few years I moved out so I ‘forgot’ about it.

A decade or so later, my father and I decided to build a house.
My mother had died, I was the only child… It was obvious for both of us that, sooner or later, we’ll have to ‘camp’ back together. He was already on the wrong side of 60…

When he moved in, the clock followed suit.
I hanged it on the wall. Attempted to make it work. Something had happened to it while in transit. Left it be, for a while.
At some point, my father asked me to take it to a repair shop.
Brought it back. The guy had not only fixed the mechanism, he had also bent back the ‘chiming’ rods.
Couldn’t sleep that night!
Told my father the racket must stop. He agreed. He hadn’t slept either.
After bending, again, those damn rods, we sat down to watch TV. The couch is right below the clock. After five minutes, we looked at each other. I stood up and stopped the pendulum.

‘But why don’t you just throw it away?’

It’s not that simple.
It reminds me of my childhood.
I don’t hate the object, only the sounds it makes.
I’d have to hang something else in it’s place. There’s a hole in the wall and a ‘shadow’ on the ‘white wash’.
And, above all, its stillness is an excellent reminder.

That even a broken watch is able to tell the exact time!

If it still has its arms.
If you happen to look at it at the right moment!
And only two times each day…