Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday ... yep, it's another fun fun day in Tuesdayville ...
Meet Morple ... the no tick and no tock clock. Also present and correct and silent as the grave are Gladys Jones and Father Llewellyn ... but their wordless sermons are something to talk about another day.
I remembered something yesterday that my grandparents sang to me when I was little ... (My) Grandfather's Clock, written by Henry Clay Work around 1876. That is to say, I could at least remember the chorus:
"Ninety years without slumbering, tick, tock, tick, tock ... His life seconds numbering, tick, tock, tick ... It stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died."
I remember the old pendulum wall clock that they had ... the hiss of the gas fire ... the sounds of their afternoon nap ... time having slowed as though moving through treacle.
No clock ticks or tocks in this house, though there are many of them. When Morple arrived, he would tick and tock for a couple of hours and then have a ponder about the time that had passed ... before starting up again for another couple of hours. Back in March he ceased to mark time at all. Now he's the right time twice a day and that's about all he has to say on the matter.
He came from the home of an old gentleman that had gone into a nursing home, and Morple was here some months before his hands lay still. I often wonder, as I sit in the kitchen with only the hum of the fridge for company, whether his sudden complete silence marked the passing of his original owner ...
