September drabbles - 23
I liked that clock.
I liked the ticking that beat the passing seconds one by one. I liked the dong, always out of time, a quarter-hour with twenty minutes gone. I liked its telling of the hour, random numbers just for fun.
“What will we do with Granddad’s clock?” I asked after he died.
Mum sighed. “You know he always hated it.”
“Why?”
“It was all his parents gave him for a wedding present—a second hand clock, he said, for a second-hand-life.”
“Poor Granddad.”
I still like the clock but it stands all alone and stopped, silent like him.
I liked the ticking that beat the passing seconds one by one. I liked the dong, always out of time, a quarter-hour with twenty minutes gone. I liked its telling of the hour, random numbers just for fun.
“What will we do with Granddad’s clock?” I asked after he died.
Mum sighed. “You know he always hated it.”
“Why?”
“It was all his parents gave him for a wedding present—a second hand clock, he said, for a second-hand-life.”
“Poor Granddad.”
I still like the clock but it stands all alone and stopped, silent like him.
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