The Cuckoo Clock Tragedy

Clock-Boy (aka The Man) has always
had an uncanny awareness of time.
Once, in a sound studio I watched
while he recorded a commercial.
He read the copy and the sound
engineer recorded it. The director
paused, looked over his notes and
then said that it was great but,
"you read it in 11.8 seconds and we
need 11.5." The Man said okay, then
read it again in exactly 11.5 seconds.
The director and sound engineer were
both astonished. He had shaved a mere
.3 seconds off a line of copy.

Clock-Boy used to do that kind of stuff
all the time. I never needed a kitchen
timer, I'd just yell out, "Tell me when two minutes is up!" He has the ability to accurately
estimate the time when no clocks are available. And, he is always on time, rushing
me along by quoting Sherlock Holmes, "Being early is the prerequisite to being on time!"
which is so annoying I want to gag.

In spite of his interconnectedness with time, Clock-Boy has never worn a watch.
Instead, he has acquired an assortment of clocks. Not electric or digital clocks,
although he has those, too. I mean he has several real clocks, the ticking and
chiming sort. He keeps them all running. He winds them and sets them and
tinkers with them until, at the top of the hour, his efforts are rewarded. They
all chime in unison. It is very pretty sounding.

I enabled his clock obsession to a degree by providing one clock into the mix.
Part of my marriage dowry (ha!) was the family cuckoo clock (by the way it's
"cuckoo," not "coo coo"). My mother bought it in Germany in about 1965 and,
years later, she gave The Kincannon Kuckoo Klock to us when we got married
and lived in a cabin in the woods without electricity. The practicality with which
we regarded the clock has, over the past thirty years, evolved into a sense of
camaraderie and love. That clock has ticked away the minutes of our life together.

That is...until a week ago.

Last Thursday, Clock-Boy came home with not one, but TWO old clocks. A mantle
clock and a long case Grandmother's clock (defined as like a Grandfather's clock,
but slimmer and usually under 6'3" tall and I'm sure only Sherlock Holmes knows
how they arrived at that figure).

We decided to put the Grandmother's clock on the wall where the cuckoo clock has
hung for many years. It just looked like the perfect spot. So, I hurridly grabbed the
Cuckoo clock and, against The Man's wishes, took it off to the kitchen saying, "I know
the perfect place for this!" And, I did. There was a picture hanging there, but it was
easily moved. All the while The Man is saying, "Don't do that now!...Wait a minute!"
But he was very involved with setting up the Grandmother clock and couldn't run
after me. I was too excited to listen, which I should know by now is a bad thing.

The curved (yes, "curved!") bolt in the wall was very durable. Everything seemed
simple. I hung the clock up and I heard it clunk down on the bolt. It was very level
and stable. I grabbed the two heavy, pine cone-shaped weights and hung them upon
the chains. Then, I took about five steps, turned around and announced, "Oh, it's looks
so perfect th...!"

KA-BLAM!

Before I could finish my sentence, the clock crashed down, pulled heavily by the weights.
It was a resounding crash. Like a giant redwood in a muted forest, and yes, if no one had
been there to hear it, it would have made a sound!

I spun around and shrieked in horrified disbelief, "OH NO!!!" My eyes found the bolt in
the wall, still there, as strong as ever. But my clock! My clock was shattered, splattered,
scattered on the floor in what seemed to me a million pieces, indecipherable, unrecognizable,
unputtogetherable.

Everyone ran into the room. Jon, my stepson, who happened to be here with his family
for a visit, was the only one coherent or brave enough to walk up to the pile of clock
splinters and attempt to assess it's condition. He picked up the pieces and put them on
the table kindly saying, "Well, it doesn't look too bad...I'm sure it can be fixed," but I
caught the look he gave his dad. The look that said, "This is one dead bird clock."

The pile of clock sat there in front of me as I began my journey through the five stages
of grief. Denial lasted about a minute and a half, until The Man said, "I told you not to
hang the clock on that bolt. It's curved. It was meant to hold a picture, but you wouldn't
listen to me!" His words inspired me to enter the Anger stage, shouting out, "Who in
their right mind would put a curved bolt in the wall?!" "How was I to know?!" "It seemed
strong to me!"

My impotence was pathetic. This was a tragedy of Oedipean magnitude and I could
only raise my head and rail against the folly of the Gods. It really was my fault, my
fatal flaw, my tragic error, my catastrophe.

I decided to skip the Bargaining stage of my grief since there really was no point and,
instead, headed right into Depression. Good ol' depression. Works every time! Except,
I had house guests, including my two granddaughters. Several minutes after slumping
to the floor, rolling back and forth, moaning and crying and slobbering, and clutching
pieces of the cuckoo bird in my flailing arms, it occurred to me it probably wasn't a
good thing for innocent children to witness, so I stopped whimpering and just sat
there staring at the space on the wall where the clock had "looked so perfect th...!"

I allowed myself to wallow in depression for about an hour before moving on and
begrudgingly Accepting the reality of the situation, which was devastation of the
"utter" kind.

I'll always remember where I was
when the cuckoo attempted flight...
and fell...like Prometheus...unbound...
unwound...downed...on the ground...

I'll always remember the crash
of sound that took my heart down
with it to it's splintery end...on the floor
near the cellar door...to tick
nevermore...nevermore...



ADDENDUM: We took the Cuckoo Clock to the repairman. We entered his shop like
two hooded penitents with a lot of sinning to confess, carrying the dead clock before
us in a shoebox. The repairman didn't even flinch when he looked inside. He told his
assistant, "It needs new bellows." He said he'd seen worse. I said I couldn't imagine
worse. The assistant patted me on the back and said, "Don't you worry. He's gonna
fix this thing up just like new, you'll see." I hope so. I miss that ol' bird.