We Clocks

I have this old clock in my room. I don't remember how I got it, it was a long while ago. Among other paraphernalia in my room, it adorns a small portion of the wall over a door and is abundantly visible from any corner of the room.

It used to show the right time when it was fairly new but eventually, it stopped doing so. It still runs though, I can still see its needles moving, relentlessly ticking away. It doesn't work yet it is not dead. It isn't bound by its purpose or by the way it should be.

I change its batteries regularly as I do for all my other devices. It has, on several occasions, crossed my mind to get it fixed but off late I have just accepted it.

It annoys my friends who visit me ever so often, there are times when we are lost in conversations and laughter when the evenings are stretching on and one doesn't want them to end when we are at ease with each other and the outside world has faded in the backdrop. Something gnaws at their beings, it compels them to look at it, sometimes from the corner of their eyes and sometimes it warrants a full turn of the face. They see the clock, they see its needles moving and read its face, as I read theirs. It is usually followed by surprise or confusion and maybe a little angst. When these emotions become abundant, a question stirs deep inside and manifests as an action to look at their phones or wristwatches, a simple realignment to our world. The regulars ask me to get it fixed and the new ones tell me it is broken.

It is a secret pleasure of mine to read that ephemeral moment between the confusion and realignment; when, ever so often, there is a delight or relief on their face, a pure and true joy. That instant when they believe whatever that clock is reading is what they hoped for. It releases them from any commitment or agenda they had, it releases them from themselves; they, for an instant, are free from time.

We, humans, have quantified this concept of time. We have built our entire lives around it. Everything we have ever known, though, or created has the essence of time. It is our universal standard of truth. An unalterable law, a dimension we cannot move freely through yet. That being said, this small wall clock is the chink in that armor.

Even though I am well aware of the condition of this clock, in my stupor, I sometimes stumble upon that very same feeling, a profound sense of being free from time. I have always been told by people, much accomplished than I, things like, 'there is a right time to do everything.'; 'A correct path must be taken at the correct time.' ; 'If the right decision is not made at the right time, it is a wrong decision.'... and so on. There is no dearth of such wise anecdotes. A part of me believes these and so I live and exist, trying to catch up and at times slow down to match what the world deems right and correct and true. It frightens me when I am told that those who do not respect time perish and are forgotten. It is on occasions like this I feel akin to that clock.

Even though it is an object without consciousness, it personifies. This clock is broken in our world, but... Is it... Really? It doesn't stop, it doesn't know it is broken, it just toils away. It has no idea of its purpose or the reason for its creation. It is said that even a clock that dies, shows the correct time at least twice a day but this one may not even do that and yet it brings these small unanticipated moments of joy, of freedom. Something a normal clock may never accomplish. We may call it a lie, a false pleasure but then so is everything else. Extend time on a long enough scale and everything becomes irrelevant and false. We are but moments in existence. All connate clocks, some-more fit to be in this world than others trying to coexist and set the pace for each other.

If I had a choice I would rather be obliviously broken like my wall clock.