The clock chimed – “Jan must be arriving here any minute now,” she thought to herself. It must have been a little over a year now, since Jan and his children came to visit. Sitting in her old, upholstered chair, she stared out of the window into the garden. With low gurgling sounds and a characteristic aroma, the coffee machine announced that the brew was almost ready to be served. The doorbell rang; she opened the door and welcomed her son and her grandchildren.
They gathered in the living room, sat down, and chattered cheerfully while catching up with each other’s lives. Somewhere in between the changing of subjects, the clock started playing it’s hourly song: Boinggg, one time, Boinggg, a second time, but as they all were anticipating the next couple of chimes, nothing happened. Silence fell over the room and not even the usual ticking sound could be heard. “Did you forget to wind up the clock?” Jan asked his mother, suppressing the onset of his unease in his voice. “I’m pretty sure I wound up the clock last Sunday, like I have done every Sunday since your dad passed away. But I must say that it’s getting harder with these old hands of mine,” she responded. “Let me do it,” Jan offered as he got up from his seat. With one nifty move, he swept up little Tommy as he walked towards the clock.
“This is an old clock, Tommy, older than me and even older than your own gran-gran.” Tommy looks at the clock and then at his grandma, who confirmed this with a small little nod. “Here, through this little window, you can see the inside of the clock.” Jan lifted Tommy closer to the little window on the side. “See all those little gears? They are all connected in one big mechanism in order to tell us what time it is, but to be able do this, the clock needs our help, so we need to wind up the clock.” Jan opened the clock’s little door and placed the key into the winding slot. “Let’s give the clock some new power, Tommy, you can turn the key to the right.” Tommy, a little scared of damaging the clock, slowly gave the key a slight turn. Jan took over and gave the key a few more decisive spins. As he removed the key, the clock started making some soft ticking and rattling noises, after which the clock continued his play from before.
“Ah, yes,” grannie said, staring into the garden again, “this clock has been with me for a quite some time already. One time, when me and my little brother – your granduncle Theo – were still little, Theo decided that he was done with all that ticking and chiming in the house, so he secretly hid away the wind-up key. That Sunday evening we turned the whole house upside down and downside up again, since the clock was the only time-keeper we had. After searching for at least an hour, little Theo started crying. With eyes full of tears he admitted his crime while holding the key in his hands out in front of him. He had been hiding it in his back pocket all this time. Needless to say, our dad was furious, but we all felt a relief knowing that our clock would be able to continue doing its job.”
“You know, mom,” Jan said, “you really don’t have to go through all the trouble of winding up this clock anymore. You have plenty of other clocks in the house now. If it’s the chiming you like, I can get you another one with all the different kinds of chiming sounds that the world has to offer.” Grannie looked at her son while shaking her head in disbelief of the stupidity of the idea he just proposed. This was definitely out of the question.
Years had gone by, and grannie passed away. Jan was at the retirement home where his mother spent the last few years of her life to clean out her belongings. He walked around in the room until he came to a stop in front of the now silent clock. He gently opened the clock’s little door and started to wind it up once more, but the clock remained silent. No ticking, no chiming, not a sound. He remembered the conversation with his mother from all those years ago, and he finally understood. With teary eyes and a heavy heart, Jan slowly closed the clock’s door again. The soft, shrieking noise made it sound as if the clock, too, was saying its final goodbye.
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