The Clock

Something odd happened to me this Sunday. I visited my parents for lunch, waiting for my wife to join us. She had left earlier that morning to visit her friend. When I arrived, my parents had collected piles of junk to dispose off. My parents are hoarders of sorts, slow to let go of junk. Among the pile was an old, rusted table fan, which hadn’t been used for months now, a ceiling fan that recently broke down. There were bags of other junk, and an old wall clock.

My father had called the local junk trader, thrift shop fellow, or whatever people call them these days. He lifted the table fan with one hand, shoved the other things in a bag and flung it on his back and tried to get a hold of the clock. My father was clutching the wall clock politely and delicately handing it to him, asking him to be careful not to break the two glass panels that covered the face and the pendulum compartment. The trader said he would come back up to take the clock. My father waited holding it.

I offered to take the clock down to the trader’s cycle. I handed it over and came back home. My wife, my parents and I had lunch and the hot and humid Sunday afternoon eased by.

Something broke in me and bothered me since afternoon and I couldn’t put a finger on it. I felt quite humiliated and defeated, when I saw my father reluctantly giving the clock away. I felt odd about this but I had chosen to stay silent. For a household that doesn’t give junk away easily, it should’ve meant relief - more space and neatness.

I wouldn’t call that clock a grandfather clock because it wasn’t one of those monstrosities. It was a pretty large wooden clock, with a chrome pendulum, a black round face with silver hands. I have seen it all my life, and it’s quite similar to the clock at my paternal, ancestral home. That clock would ring every hour, with its haunting chimes. I have seen uncles and my grandfather key that ancestral home clock, like I have seen my father key and maintain this clock for the past 40 years. My father has had this clock for much longer, possibly since the 60s.

It felt like this was a time keeper but also for us, it was around us for a majority of all our lives. It felt like denial of letting things go and things taking their course, and whether this clocked worked or not, I felt odd having left it pass off as waste, as junk. I spent a good 30 minutes distracted, trying to find shops that could have repaired the clock. I tried finding tutorials on how to repair old wall clocks, and what parts might be needed, and if there were any custom clock makers who could build a replica of this clock for us. Was there a clock like this on etsy. There was nothing.

I messaged my parents first on our little WhatsApp group asking if the clock wasn’t working at all. They said it wasn’t for years now. Then, I messaged my father, asking him if he wanted to dispose off the clock. He said, if I wanted it, we could’ve done something about it. I kept quiet, a little annoyed, a little down. I tried to distract myself as I always do.

My mother called me back 15 minutes later, told me my father had gone to the junk buyer and got the clock back. My father is a better person than I am. Maybe he too just needed me to signal something.