Clockwork

So true and disturbing are the incidents written here that I’ve stopped making and collecting clocks, the only thing I’ve always wanted to and loved the most.

‘Tick tock.. tick tock..’ and my heartbeat would sync with it. For more than twenty years, I’d lived with clocks. I called myself a clock mason, one who pioneers in the extraordinary art of designing these intricate pieces of time.

My fascination with clocks began at an early age when I repaired them at a local shop. My job was to repair, finish and polish. I used to repair ten clocks a week, a far better standard in those days. Slowly, what started as a routine job became a hobby and then, a passion and an obsession.

Nothing else captures the exuberance as you run your fingers through your favourite piece of creation which is far more profound than anything.

All my life, I’d collected clocks of various shapes and types. There were hundreds of them including the rare Simon Willard banjo clock, a kit-kat clock, a tête de poupée, and an 1890’s grandfather clock. My daily work was to wind them up and sit listening to the overlapping ticking sounds and occasional dongs which were euphonically better than a Beethoven’s quartet.

And then there was Helen, my beautiful Helen, in my life. We’ve been married for two years. She had a special dislike for the one thing I loved the most, clocks, the reason, she thought I neglected her and spent most time with my clocks.

I too tried my part to keep away from them. But few things are as immutable as my addiction to something as low as a ticking of a clock. Helen gradually started to hate me.

I loved her. I tried to explain my passion for the clocks. She refused to listen.

On the fateful day, I was repairing an old torsion clock. Helen was as usual complaining. Her nagging seemed to have crossed the limits, that day. She walked into the room housing my clocks, with a sledge hammer.

And raised her voice, ‘I don’t want to lead a life of neglect’. A grim silence ensued but...

But the harmonious ticking sounds dissolved it. In the midst of which I saw her grip the hammer and without any warning she started to smash them one by one. She couldn’t contain her anger anymore.

It took me a while to react. With every blow landing on a clock, I felt like my life draining out of me. I pleaded with her. I persuaded her. She wouldn’t heed. As she was about to smash the rarest of ‘em all, the Willard banjo, I pushed her aside in the nick to time, hence saving the clock.

She hit the wall and lay motionless. The posterior of her skull forced its way through a nail protruding out of the wall, splattering blood all over. I looked at her in utter distraught as she breath her last.

I was terribly shaken at the turn of these events. My wife was very precious to me just like the clocks were. I wish she understood my passion for clocks, in which case an accident like this would‘ve been averted, I lamented over the loss of my wife. But the next thing that occurred to me was that I would be charged with her murder and subsequently jailed.

I have to evade punishment. I couldn’t move the dead body out of my apartment. It may raise many a curious eye-brows. There had to be a way. Yes, there is a way.

I slowly dragged her body to the sink and lifted her onto the perforated table. I reached for a cleaver and started to chop her body. My intent was to transport the body out of my building by placing the chopped parts into the clocks.

The Grandfather’s clock was long enough to accommodate her legs. The kit-kat clock could accommodate her hands and so on. And now that the entire job is done, I dint have the heart to dump away her body parts through these clocks.

And I decided to keep the clocks with me till my last breath, for they hid in them a terrible secret. One day, I will be gone too. Even then I wanted people to take care of my clocks, more particularly the ones that contained her remains. I wrote a similar note and placed it in each of those clocks.


‘An earnest appeal to who-so-ever owns these clocks, please handle the clocks with care for they carry my heart...’

And I finished reading the manuscript. Nisha was in a state of shock and it took her a few minutes to recover from that shock. After that she never entered my clocks room, where I’ve collected all the clocks over the years as a part of my hobby. She never questioned my commitment towards her and my spending lots of time on clocks too. I commentated on the manuscript to Aakash who had gooseflesh after hearing my narration.

“So you scared her out of her wits by revealing about the clock? So you have his original clock that contains his wife, Helen’s remains,” he was curious.

I smiled and shook my head, “no.”

“Just to keep Nisha at bay.”

“What about the manuscript, she never bothered to look at it?”

“A scared woman won’t see the difference between an old looking manuscript and a blank crumpled paper,” I finished.