Clock

Time ticked, like it always does when me do not want to notice it, the clock always awakens me from the slumber I slip into and halts me in the sojourns I take to relieve my mind of thoughts. The tick of a clock reminding me of getting older. Does time age? Does time age wither and die? Will time ever grow old and bide slowly? Will people become timeless? Do moments become timeless? Thoughts again. And no clock to disturb them. It is the clock that ignites them. The clock always ticked when I wanted silence. It disturbed me when I needed solace loneliness and space, the ageless timeless clock.

I realized as a kid that the clock had a single untiring monotone. It never changed the note. Never showed emotion, never gurgled during happy times never moaned during sad times. It never showed the times it always gave the time. It never fluttered a second when I won the medal. It didn’t slip a note when we mourned death. There it stood, the ageless monotonous clock ticking time biding our times and bidding us away in its own methodic monodyne. The clock.

As a kid I stood at the clock wondering how big it was how old it looked and how boring it sounded. Chiseled to perfection working away like it was fresh as ever day and night running the family, running the time we were running with it. Time caught up with it tonight I guess, it must stop in its tracks finally.

When I was writing my exams, the last thing I did before going to school was to pay my respects to the clock. Set my time and say good byes and good lucks. The clock stood there with a beguiling mirth that filled me with confidence that I need not fear the clock if the exam was a fiasco.

The clock told me when I was late to tennis and tuition. I hid my stamp collection behind the clock. The clock woke me every morning to run to school. The clock taught me how to be punctual. Does time keep time.

I loved superman. When I overslept, the clock woke me up in the evenings to watch the last parts of the episodes on television. Dad never got back early, I sat at the clock side waiting for him listening to the clock ticking.

The clock seemed to show me the best time. It loved me the most I thought as a youngster. Later I grew to understand it loved us all alike and showed us all the same time. It seemed difficult to digest it then but now I understand. The clock stayed sturdy while all of us looked to it for time, perfection, affection in good times and in bad it showed us time and told us that it shall pass. The clock ticks.

Will time age?

My grandfather…clock.