Once upon a time, there was a clock maker who had made clocks all his life, it seemed, and the routine was beginning to wear out his fingers and brain, which was tired of looking at numbers only 1 to 12, including Roman Numerals, and the three slots in a drawer for long hands and short hands and the long skinny second hands in the longest compartment…all well organized but tiresome.
His wife encouraged him to do something else. It was obvious to her that he was getting a bit overwhelmed with his job. In this era, people worked as long as they could. There was no retirement, social security, or welfare. So our clockmaker was still making clocks even though he was becoming an old man.
Sometimes, at dinner, they would be talking and he would say things like, “What was the weather today, 10, 11, 12, long hand, short.”
“Abraham”, his wife said, for that was his name, “what are you trying to say?”
“What?” he shook his head and said, “I asked about the weather. I haven’t been outside
all day!” He had no ideas of his strange comment.
And once, he brought in several of the clock hands, both long and short, and started to make designs on the table as they ate.
“I think you need to get away from making clocks!” Martha , the wife shakily stammered - because she was getting quite concerned and worried about our clockmaker.
“I have a little clock I am making that I like. I think people will also like it because it is unusual. If I made it big enough, the town could buy it and put on the tallest building so everyone would see it and know if they were on time or early or late for whatever they were doing.” Abraham replied.
Martha sighed, loudly. “OK, Abraham, go make another little clock. But then I think we need a vacation, somewhere where time of day doesn’t matter. Somewhere we can relax, sleep late, not be aware of the time and have people wait on us, ... get three meals a day.”
This was quite unusual for Martha to say because in this era, people had never even heard of a vacation. There was a small inn in town where travelers might stay overnight in getting to their destination, but never did they tarry for several days for what would they do in this little village where people worked at their jobs all the time and there was no beach to watch the surf or lie in the sun, nor a mountain to walk the trail or fish in a river. That would be absurd. Maybe Martha was losing her senses as well as Abraham.
So Abraham went back to working on his new clock. He painstakingly got all the tiny numbers on it correctly, then thought, “Why do we need numbers? Everyone knows where they are on the face of the clock. I’ll just put some dashes instead. “ And he did.
The trouble was, when the dashes were in place, Abraham couldn’t tell which was the 12 and which was the 6 . “Oh well,” he thought, “ I’ll put the hands on anyway.” Satisfied, he brought the finished clock to Martha who could hold it in one hand. She looked and looked at the clock, it was only about a ¾ inch square, then at Abraham’s smiling face.
“Abraham, which way does it go? One way it says 2 minutes to 3, , another 11:20, or almost quarter to 1,or 9 :28!. And I’m not sure which hand is which, long or short! Oh dear. And if I didn’t have my glasses on, which are steamed up from checking the potatoes cooking on the wood stove, I wouldn’t be able to read any of the numbers. Abe, my dear husband, it’s charming but too small and confusing. “ She looked to see how he was taking this news and he was still just standing there, grinning. “Abraham, did you hear me?” But he didn’t answer. He drank a little coffee, seemed quite all right, but was a bit out of it.
I’m going to go back and work on another idea I have for a clock. It is quite unusual.” And Abraham walked to his clock making studio, quite content, not even realizing the strangeness of the last creation.
Martha sat down, sighed again. She knew his productive clock making days were over but…what was the harm in letting him just play with ideas and keep busy. She sat in the chair with the cooling coffee beside her, held the little clock in her hand, unconsciously turning it over and over, the little clock that told too many times.
January 14, 2014
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