From the Wall

243

From the Wall.

If you think that hanging on a wall and watching all those people doing stuff is a doddle, forget it. Inside, I feel just like one of those Dali clocks, bent over and slithering off the surface, falling asleep, except I can’t slither anywhere. But sitting on a wall is just boring. Same old, same old. I can make those people in my house go gaga though, if I want. I just slip my little hand along a bit and ‘My god,’ they say, ‘is that the time already? I’ll be sooo late!’ and they start rushing around, grabbing stuff and yelling at each other. Or I can go the other way, ‘plenty of time,’ they’ll say, ‘let’s just have a cup of tea.’ Those eternal cups of tea! At least it’s sometimes funny when they get drunk. They are so serious, shpeaking sho shlowly, like this and making silly remarks without knowing it. But sometimes the he-man (I call him that because he thinks he’s sooo smooth) when he gets drunk it isn’t too nice. He yells and bangs about. I thought I’d drop off the wall a few times and, while that might have given me something new to look at or to do, I might also break and that’s a clock’s worst nightmare. Into the garbage I’d go and die a slow and boring death in no time. Yikes.

When the she-bird gets drunk she goes all sexy. I call her the she-bird because she flutters around like a little hummingbird, flashing her colours and twittering away. So she gets tiddly and rubs herself all over the he-man and he gets all excited and sexy too. Couple of times I’ve had to watch them having sex on the floor in front of me. I tell you, there is nothing worse for a clock than to have to watch two human beings slushing all over each other, naked as the day they were born. All those bits they are so coy about keeping covered are bouncing around, then they get down to it properly, his bum in the air, or her boobs sloshing around as she jumps up and down on top of him. Yuck I say. Anyway, now there are kids in the house, so they don’t do that very much any more. But the kids are almost worse. I’m not even going to talk about them. Truth? I simply don’t like them.

No, I will say a few things about the kids, so you understand the effect they have on us all. When they were small, they cried and hollered and carried on. The walls would vibrate and I would vibrate with them. Nearly fell off a few times. And from the comments I hear about them, even though I have a face I’m pretty glad I don’t have a nose on it. You should hear the comments the garbage-can makes about their smell, and he’s learned some pretty ripe language too.

One time, after those kids first came and they were still small, and the he-man and she-bird were screeching around the house at each other, everyone forgot about me and my battery went flat. Have you ever had a flat battery? I’ve seen humans with flat batteries. Her mother comes to visit and just sits. Sit sit sit. Her batteries petered out a long time ago. Not like her granddaughter who never sits still except to watch the telly. That’s the best time for me because there’s something new and different to look at; the telly I mean.

I have no idea how long I had a flat battery because I couldn’t tell the time. Probably weeks or months. When I lived again nothing much had changed so I’m guessing it wasn’t too long. It felt so good when those new batteries went in, if I had legs I would have danced. Hands stuck to your face aren’t much use for dancing. I really love my batteries. Tick tock tick tock like a heartbeat.  Now I think of it, they are my heartbeat. So just remember that, you stupid humans out there and don’t forget our batteries. 

The olden days were better for us clocks. We had all this sexy mechanical gear inside us. Someone would wind us up, so my grandfather said. So early in the week we’d be wound up as tight as our springs would go, then slowly slowly everything would loosen up, till at the end of the week we were half-asleep. It put some variation in our lives. Now it’s just tick tick tick. If you were like my grandfather you had some jolly chimes to make. Once every quarter of an hour ‘BOING’ he’d yell, then on the hour itself ‘BOING BOING BOING’, one ‘boing’ for every hour of the day. He got totally exhausted by 12 o’clock. But he was an aristoclock and very proud of his performance. Stood on the floor too where you were part of everything going on. And he said that once a week his wood was polished and his glass front gleamed and he felt every bit as dignified as the gentleman of the house. You can see why being a battery-run wall clock at the he-man’s place is no longer a dignified profession. It has no chutzpah. Oh yes, we’ve come down in the world, indeed we have.

Then there are the real new kids on the block, those fancy-schmantzy watches people wear. The he-man has one on a fancy-schmantzy band and it does all sorts of non-clocklike behaviours. Counting his steps, for heavens sake, and checking his heart rate. Taking over other people’s work and big-noting themselves. Isn’t that just typical of the younger generation?

Now I hope you understand my situation a bit better. I have come down in the world so I’m very sensitive. Don’t fall for those new gizmos, those so-called smart watches. Don’t go banging around the house, I might fall down and break. Don’t forget I literally live on batteries. And don’t have sex on the floor in front of me, you have no idea what it does to my ticker!