The Clock

 

For some reason, the pendulum stops swining

After working fine for several years, during these last three months this clock just stops working a couple of times each week.

The pendulum just stops and thus the hands stop moving, even though it's leveled and wound fully, and I have to reset the time and restart the pendulum.

For years this didn't work at all, and I had the hands set to the time that my grandfather died since this was his clock as a sort of homage. Then a few years ago I got it fixed at a local clock shop and it's worked flawlessly.

Until now.

I'll restart the pendulum, time progresses and the hands move to the rhythmic, comforting ticking of the clockworks for a day or two, and then I'll look up and notice it has stopped and gone silent.

And I know intellectually it can't be related to the new reality without my daughter that these last three months have brought, but the intensified search for meaning and purpose for all that has happened is occasionally causing me to project causality and intention where it of course doesn't exist.

Still, it’s disconcerting.