I've been passed down from generation to generation; slowly I've been efficiently eating away at the segments of time for the past eighty years.
I've seen wars blossom and whither; I've seen flies fight furiously with their transparent nemeses – and fail spectacularly; and I've seen so many people come and go, it feels like a carousel of humans.
Whether they grew up in front of me and decided to spread their wings, or they settled down, got themselves some wrinkles and began their rotting process until they just stopped one day (and end up in that big brown box that they always seem fit to put in front of me!)...I always watch it happen.
There's something quite sad about seeing them in a coffin. Everyone mourns them, everyone brings them flowers and cards, but no one will ever spend any time with them. Their body was simply a vehicle for their personality, but when they're in that box it's just an empty unwanted shell. So unwanted that it's taboo to spend long periods of time with it.
Live together, die alone. That's what they say, right?
I remember when I got dropped. It was my first and only time I've ever been dropped. The lady of the house was dusting me, it was eleven years ago. She always held me delicately - fearing that seventy years had taken it's toll on an old clock like me - when the rampant little bastard jumped up at her in its clumsy attempt at getting her to play ball.
Yes, the rampant little bastard was their new puppy. He had effectively startled her so dramatically that she dropped me. It was on a carpeted floor, but the landing was still rough nevertheless and the dog received a good smack on his snout for his actions. I remember lying on my side with a smirk on my face as the mutt walked away with his head hung low and tail between his legs.
I remain scarred from that day. There's a chip on my upper right side and I was lucky that the glass plate covering my face didn't break upon impact. The lady of the house harrumphed and cursed the dog upon seeing the scar that now defines my features.
It took a few hours but soon enough the house realised that it had been eerily quite in the room for quite some time. It was six-oh-one in the evening and the man of the house tiptoed over to me. With his deep frown lines, etched on his face like an homage to his life he's already lived, he curiously but gently tapped my face plate with his index finger and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
We stared into each others' souls. I could see his childhood – difficult and certainly unforgettable – blend into a wonderful adulthood with a family that long since moved on and left him and his wife to live out the rest of their lives in relative peace.
He took in a deep breath and asked me, 'Are you OK?'
I wanted to thump the cabinet and have my cries rally out as I make sure the dog gets his punishment. I wanted to kick and scream and tantrum like a spoilt child who doesn't get what he wants. Instead, all I could hear was the concern in his voice; all I could see was the love in his eyes, and I simply thought, 'I'm fine.'
'What's wrong?' Inquired the lady of house as she looked over the top of her glasses.
'He didn't chime.' The man answered queerly.
'Oh.'
The lady's “Oh.” sounded awful. Sounded so definite, as if I'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Some malignant force at work on my insides. Stopping me from chiming. I never chimed again.
From that day on, I disliked the dog.
I always felt like the dog was constantly trying to sabotage my well-being.
Time and time again he would clumsily stumble or bump into the cabinet that I sit on. Whether it was whilst chasing a ball or not paying attention to his whereabouts as he so intently watched someone enter the room with food in their hands, he'd find a way to knock into the cabinet. Not only does such an action threaten my stability up there, but it also threatens the accuracy of my time keeping.
Other days would go by where we would be simply basking in the warmth of the room, lying drenched in the rays of the morning sunlight before – seemingly out of nowhere – the urge overcame him to scramble himself into an awkward position so he could lick his private parts. The ghastly sound resonated throughout the room, drowning out my poetic ticks and accurate tocks.
While I was speaking works of art, he was lapping at his orifices.
To say his incessant tail wagging, which always seemed to be within range of my cabinet and capable of sending deep guttural thuds to my core, was annoying would be an understatement and a complete injustice as to how infuriating this little bastard could be.
Further adding to his repertoire of ways which he could skilfully irritate the sanity out of a dishcloth, he would always lie with his back firmly pressed against my cabinet. Never was this an issue until his peaceful dreams turned into some fitful race where he would animatedly chase some fatuous, subconscious irritant; growling and snarling, barking and yelping, huffing and puffing. His eyes would open, he'd bare his teeth and his paws would be “going like the clappers” as the man of the house would say while commenting on the mutt in it's dreamlike state.
The black bastard always knew how to ruin a peaceful moment.
However, as the years went by, he became much more lethargic. He'd sleep so much more; he'd limp because of his stiff hips, always splaying his back left leg to make walking that bit easier; his glossy black coat became spattered with bits of grey: around his snout, on his eyebrows, on his chest, underneath his paws...He got old fast.
But that never stopped the the fact that he was always around. Always there. He seemed to enjoy staring at me, always with a curious look to his face, a tilt to the head and ears pricked up to suggest something was running through his mind. He'd ache if he sat there and stared for too long, so reluctantly, he'd slink away back to the base of the cabinet – almost out of my sight – to retire for the day and prepare himself to enter a brand new dream world.
Then it happened. His clumsy stumbles, his noisy dreams, his incessant tail wagging, his constant stares...They ended.
It didn't take as long for them to notice something was wrong with the dog as it did to notice something was wrong after I'd been dropped. It took but a few minutes in fact.
It was a silence that ached our ears; as if a presence slinked away with such stealth and hushed quiet that something just felt wrong in the room.
The man of the house once again tiptoed over to the dog in the same way he tiptoed over to me when I was lying on my side, exactly where the dog was then.
He placed his hand on the dog.
His eyes scanned the handsome black dog from head to tail.
Even from my place up high on the cabinet I could feel the man's heart race fast and his breathing become more shallow.
This time, the man of the house didn't ask, “Are you OK?”
This time, the lady of the house didn't ask, “What's wrong?”
This time, I knew: I wouldn't be fine.
He, who had left us, was faithful to us all.
Clumsy, playful, irritating? True, he was all those, but he was always there. He was always a companion to us. Never pretended to be something he wasn't; never held grudges when we cursed his name for doing something he couldn't help; and he always stood by your side and kept an eye out on you. Never could you have asked for a better friend.
He turned out to be the reason I enjoyed this place, this family, this room. He was the reason I kept putting ticks after tocks after ticks after tocks – and now that he's gone he is the reason that if the man of the house asks me one more time, “Are you OK?”...I won't be around to hear it.
At least if I stop ticking, maybe I'll get to see my friend again one day.
