Time Tells the Truth

Time Tells the Truth

 

 Some folks would like its art deco look, even now, in 2013. The electric clock was about 5 inches high and 9 inches wide. Its case was a warm mahogany colored wood, worn smooth by the hands reaching behind it early in the morning to push the alarm button off. The sweeping line of a Bell curve graph would represent its shape precisely. Its face was a perfect circle with cream background, edged by a brass ring. The brass toned hands and amber color behind them seemed to portray time in its warmest and kindest manifestation. The electrical cord was only slightly frayed, and the plug did not have the one wider prong that modern plugs do. But the clock’s connection to its power source had been effective. As far as we know, there had never been any late milking, or a missed personal appointment due to malfunction on its part. But Grandma just didn’t think it fit her décor anymore. Or maybe she had received several other clocks as gifts, and you can only use so many electric alarm clocks, now really. Maybe she wanted to help out her daughter-in-law in setting up her household, so Grandma asked my mother if she wanted the clock.

 

After that, the clock stood on the nightstand beside my father’s side of the bed for years. I remember hearing that electronic buzz on many mornings when Dad had to arise early for some outdoor work duties. It was a fixture on that night stand along with the tin of  Mentholatum and the extra coins from Dad’s pockets which often drew one of us three girls to the nightstand where Dad told us we could find some extra change for our own use.

 

Grandpa had been ill for some time. He had a bad heart. He retained fluid and often couldn’t breathe. In those days they called it dropsy. He was often so weak he could barely get out of bed. A tall green oxygen tank stood beside his bed which had commandeered the former dining room in Grandma and Grandpa’s house, because he could no longer go up to his second floor bedroom to sleep. When I was 11 years old, Grandpa died. Grandma found him dead in his bed when she went first thing in the morning to check on him. The local general practitioner estimated that he had died around 4 o’clock in the morning. 

           

A telephone call instead of the alarm clock awoke my father to report to him that his father was no longer with us.  After years of perfect service, the mahogany art deco clock had stopped working at 4:10 AM that day.

 

Years later while preparing for her own moving sale, Mom found the old clock wrapped up in a towel and packed away in a box among piles of other boxes in her storeroom. The time was still 4:10. I told her not to put it on her auction sale, to keep it, but don’t plug it in or use it. That clock had led a life of telling the truth.

Note: I wrote this story in 2002. It is a true story with one poetic license taken. The license only regards the description of the clock. The clock was actually square. It still exists in my mother's storage. The story is one of several that I have experienced in my lifetime that seems to point towards the paranormal, or perhaps in today's jargon, some sort of quantum physical entanglement between this clock and my grandfather.

I would invite comments about this true story.