The Magic Clock

A woman is walking through a flea market and notices an antique clock that has been displayed on a wall inside one of the booths. It has a large round face with Roman numerals for the hour markers with a visible pendulum that falls below. She decides to buy it.

Once she returns home, she removes several pictures from a wall in her room and replaces it with the clock. The clock is no longer working, but it adds a sense of style to the room.

The time on the clock reads ten past two. One afternoon, after she returns home, she glances at the clock. For a non-working clock, the time on the clock looks real.

A few weeks later, the woman sets her alarm clock for 6 pm instead of 6 am. The woman is woken by a loud chime. She glances at the clock that displays “6:45 am” and is alarmed by the time. The alarm did not go off. She picks up the small clock and notices that the alarm setting was set for “6 pm”. She quickly gets ready in order to make her morning appointment.

About a month later, the woman returns home, and notices the time on the clock reads 3 pm. She is somewhat puzzled by the new time the clock its showing, but doesn’t think too much about it. She was moving some of the furniture around in her room as she was vacuuming and thinks she must have bumped the clock.

The following day, she is listening to her voicemail messages, and listens to a message from her friend. Her friend is going to be in town, and wants to know if she will be available to meet for lunch. The timestamp on the message is “3 pm”.

She meets her friend for lunch and she invites her friend over so she can give her a change of clothing. It is a nice spring day, and they have decided to walk to a nearby park in the area. The park has a small lake with a paved trial. It is a popular trail that is used by walkers, runners, bikers, and pet owners. A variety of houses that look unique and original line the lake. In the warmer months, there tend to be a number of boats in the water. Between all the boats, homes, and trees in the area, it’s a nice lake to walk around and enjoy the view.

The woman has a small doll collection. The dolls are located on a shelf in the woman’s room. After her friend changes into clothes so they can go on their walk, she is looking at the dolls and says, “This doll is really cute. The watch around her wrist even works.”

The woman says, “I didn’t know the watch worked. I never looked that closely at it.” She goes over to the doll and looks at the watch. The doll has a small watch with a black leather band around its wrist. The second hand on the watch is advancing.

A few months later, the woman is cleaning and rearranging a few things around in her room. She moves her dresser slightly so she can vacuum underneath it. As she is vacuuming, she turns so her back is facing the clock, and as she takes a few steps back, she accidentally bumps into the clock. Her motion causes the pendulum to move.

Her motion causes the clock to start working again. The following day after she returns home, she notices that the pendulum is still moving back and forth and the time on the clock has moved. She gets a small step ladder and sets it up in front of the clock. She steps onto it, and carefully sets the hour and minute hand on the clock to the current time.

For the next few days, the woman observes the clock to see if the pendulum continues to move, and each time she returns home, she checks to see if the clock is displaying the correct time. As far as she can tell, the clock seems to be working properly. From that point on, the clock stops working every few weeks. She has found that if she moves the pendulum, it will begin working again.

On another occasion, the woman has to attend a special event. As she is getting ready, she opens the drawer where she keeps her dress watch. She hasn’t worn the watch for over a year, and is surprised that the watch is still showing the correct time. She usually has to re-set it.

One day, she returns home, and finds the clock has stopped. She moves the pendulum, and assumes it will begin working again. Later that evening, she notices that the pendulum is not moving. She once again touches it to begin its motion. The following morning, she sees that the pendulum is not moving, and thinks the clock must no longer be working.

She goes to work and learns that one of her business clients is relocating and the project they have been working on has been cancelled. She is somewhat disappointed, but it tends to happen in her line of work.

By now, the woman has noticed that the clock does something uncharacteristic every once in a while. It will chime, display the incorrect time, keep watches that hand wind working, or stop working. The clock often chimes when she needs to be reminded of the time. For instance, a chime will wake her in the morning, and if she is working on her computer and needs to leave time to get ready for an appointment, she may hear a chime late in the afternoon.

After another occasion when the phone displayed 12 o’clock when it was late in the afternoon, and the following day, the woman receives a dozen roses as a “Thank You” gift, she starts to wonder if the clock has a sixth sense. The clock seems to chime when she needs to be reminded of the time, signals upcoming news by changing the time on display, and seems to stop before there is disappointing news.

While she could never be sure, she came to think of it as her magic clock. Regardless of whether or not it was true, she learned that the clock was often trying to communicate to her and took note when it occasionally chimed or stopped working. She laughed when she heard the clock making five chimes in a row at 5 pm one afternoon as she was working on a deadline and thought “What will you do next?”