Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Yesterday, lying in bed, wishing the sky was brighter, wishing the pre-dawn hours were a bit more advanced, I tried not to wake up. I tried to enjoy the warmth of my fleece blanket and cold air from the open window, contrasting sensations that–like salt and sugar–intensify each other. I tried to relax, listening to the sounds of the wind through branches, the honk of overflying geese, the drip of fog-born dew from the spruce trees.

Instead, all I heard was the ticking of my bedside clock.

My Lux Symphony clock is eighty years old. It ticks with a strong, mechanical sound colored by overtones of brass and Bakelite. It is a steady, measured heartbeat, a consistent noise that evens out the disturbances of the suburban night:  the midnight caterwauling of our domestic shorthair , the snufflings my wife makes between 3 and 4AM, and the haunting, pack-mind howls the next-door Alsatians make whenever there’s a siren within earshot. (Their earshot, not mine.)

Monday morning, though, something was different. The clock wasn’t a balm; it wasn’t a steady background noise.

The clock was limping.

It took me a few seconds  to notice the change, but once I did, it was obvious. The steady pulse was lopsided and, a few seconds later, it was more so. The tick was still strong, but the tock was anemic, following too quickly, like a two-step rag played by inexpert hands.

This past weekend, we had houseguests stay with us. During the visit, all my routines were disturbed. I didn’t get those long, sleep-in snoozes that recharge me after a week’s work and worry. I didn’t have that quiet hour, near the garden window, coffee in hand, staring out at autumn’s paisleyed garb. The weekend days had not been calm and serene, but were filled with the bustle of a young family, a young child in tow. It was a weekend of breakfast gatherings, dinners out, conversations and jokes, day trips and errands. Don’t get me wrong: It was a great visit and we love them dearly, but I was thrown off my patterns, including the nightly ritual of winding my clock.

And so, as I lay listening, I heard the clock falter–once…twice–and then stop.

It was a held-breath moment, one of those brief, barely glimpsed events, gone almost before you know it. “Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be / Ere one can say ‘It lightens.'” Juliet knows what I mean.

The stopping of a clock. The falling of a leaf. The first snowflake of winter. A loved one’s last breath.

It was an ephemeral moment, unique and unrepeatable. Lying there, swathed by the sudden silence, I felt alone, bereft.

I recovered, of course. I rose and got on with my day. I went to work, sat through interminable hours of meetings, but throughout it all, that moment lingered, painting everything with a melancholy brush. The grey skies didn’t help.

Today, I’m a bit better. Events have conspired, extending the mood I’ve been trying to shake off, but while it has yet to lift, I can feel its grip loosen. What I find oddest about the entire thing is that it was so affecting. We are curious creatures, we humans. Curious, complex, and at times unfathomable.

I’ll be okay, but before I sleep again, I’ll also make sure that clock is fully wound.

k