Bongs

There is no one in the room but me. A flickering scented candle, a lighted treasure tree (more on that another day), multi-colored twinkle lights across the mantle, one antique lamp burning in the corner, this all blankets the parlor with a soft sheen of calm. I listen. No TV blasting, no loud radio, no music, no voices.  I am alone with my ever-spinning thoughts. I am unaware that the top of the hour is upon me. When it arrives, it will not be deterred until its count is complete. Right now, the time is eleven p.m. For so long, the intruder has been primed. He will not be stilled  And so that rich, deep, resonating tone continues its full count. Slow, even, unrelenting, the bongs of the antique grandfather clock win the day- No, win the night. My silence is no more.

Focus shattered, I concentrate anew on what sounds seemingly have increased in volume when I know they have not in reality. There is no need to take my eyes from my monitor for I hear the tick-tock of the ancient giant in my room and know his customary dance too well; he never rests. Yet there are more sounds that join him in his march. One of which is the small round French rose clock on the wall over the fireplace. It, too, has turned up its volume or have I turned up my listening to hear her sweeter voice?


Then I let my thoughts wander from room to room. I may not always listen, but they are always there, running. Always running.There is a clock on the table by the dining room, a pretty flowery thing I fell in love with once upon a vacation somewhere, the Irish Waterford clock my father and brother gave me with its pink roses adorning another mantle. Still wandering, I mentally enter the kitchen, the Tutti-Fruitti clock with broken hands, now replaced and functioning, is on the wall.  The microwave, the stove - two more clocks. These computer clocks light the room at night when a drink of water is needed but no brightness can be endured. The radio that accompanies our culinary creationing is wired for time, too.


The office has one. The guest room has the alarm plus a traveling clock moved from room to room by another in our manor. (No questions, please, for I have no answers here.)  The master bedroom. Hmm. One alarm, one on the recorder. Perhaps that's all.  No it is not.  There are watches in jewelry boxes, spent. Batteries needed, they wait for renewed life.  That, in the master bath, glows in the dark.


Cell phones tell the time. His working watch, my working watch... Please, no more. Have I mentioned all these clocks read differently? I could correct their hands of time, so they ticked in unison, but no.  For if I did, I would have no excuse for ever being late again.