FOR WHOM THE CLOCK CHIMES...

Oh dear, I've no idea where this came from, though several years ago I did post a story about an old man and his clock...

So there we were in an unused field on the edge of old Piper’s farm where he rarely went to plough now that he was getting on in years and wise enough to know that whatever he sowed would go unharvested anyway, what with labourers being so hard to find since Brexit. We were sitting close together on a blanket that Rosie had brought with her, and summer strands of long grass were bending in the breeze towards her, merging with the loveliness of her long stranded hair. The sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky, bathing us with its benevolence and she was smiling at me like she so often did.

I was telling her about my plans.

“I was going to write a story about a sad old man who was watching his grandfather clock as it slowly ran down, the ticks and the tocks getting weary and slow, and I remembered that I’d already written it years ago,” I said, quite truthfully.

“It sounds morbid,” she murmured, “what happened to him?

I sighed. “I guess you’d call it clichéd,” I grinned, “because just as the clock was going to chime twelve his door was knocked. And when he opened it the grim reaper, scythe over shoulder and a fleshless face, grinned at him as if he’d been expected, and whispered in horrid hissing tones that the old man should follow in his footsteps.”

“Yuck!” she said, “a cliché certainly! Did he follow?”

“Most certainly,” I replied, “because he was taken to a party.”

“Fancy dress?”

“Not at all! There was Death with his scythe, grinning like a Cheshire cat’s boney skull, and a great gate with Saint Peter guarding it, huge bound book in his hands, and in the distance a choir was singing, a choir that could only have been angels because it was so sweet.”

“Oh. Disappointing. It was Heaven’s gate, then?” asked Rosie, “I thought you had more originality than that! And you said it was a party. It doesn’t sound very jolly to me!”

“Parties don’t have to be jolly,” I told her. “This was far from being a joyous gathering of friends because his ex-wife was there. They’d married when they were young enough to do silly things like walk into disasters with their eyes open, and their marriage had been the biggest disaster ever!”

“I see,” she smiled at me, “you mean, like ours would be if we went that far?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied awkwardly, “I think you’re the nicest woman in the world, Rosie.”

She blushed at that. “Anyway, what happened in your story?” she asked.

“It was a bit … unpleasant,” I warned her.

“I’ve read quite a lot of your stuff, and a great deal of it can be called unpleasant,” she teased me. At least, I hope she was teasing.

“His ex-wife lay down, on the grass…”

“So it was a field a bit like this one?” she asked.

I looked around and nodded. “Spookily, it was very much like this one,” I told her, “anyway, she lay down and things started crawling our of her you know what, down below. Like gigantic spiders, moving sinuously as they left her and walked towards my hero, the old man…”

“Giant spiders?”

“Huge. And his ex-wife just lay there and let it happen. A tribe of the damned things, one after the other, looking balefully about them through their spidery eyes, and going towards the old man.”

“And she just lay there?”

“Perfectly still. But then she would be still wouldnlt she? After all, she was dead. Then he saw that Saint Peter was dead. His book was crumbling to dust and drifting off in the breeze. “Death was dead. His scythe rusted and fell from his shoulder to the ground. Even the huge gate creaked and started falling off its hinges. The grass withered and turned into brown wisps of death…”

“And your old man?”

“Well, there was the distant sound of a clock chiming. He could hear it and the spiders, all of them crawling towards him, could hear it. He counted the chimes as it tolled the hour. It chimed twelve.”

“Not something spooky, like thirteen?” she teased me, “after all, when a clock cimes and I hear ita nd count the chimes I’m always one out because I rarely include the first one, the one that alerted me that it was chiming.”

“No. Twelve. He was sure of that. And he knew how to count!”

“And where did the spiders go?” she asked, and shivered, “I think I can guess!”

“You never will, Rosie. It wasn’t very nice. I told you, I can be a bit macabre.”

“Did they come to a spidery standstill just in front of him? And then, in a voice like a thousand whispering demons did they tell him who they were?”

“So you did you read it back then when I wrote it?” I asked, surprised at how close she was to the crux of my ancient story.

“I was much too young to do that!” she protested, “I doubt I was even born! After all, I’m a great deal younger than you!”

“As you keep reminding me, darling,” I said.

“So what happened? What message did the spiders have for your old man?”

“They told him, you’re a sweet young thing and I don’t want to say it…”

“Of course you can! I’m old enough to bear the shame of understanding it,” she giggled.

“Unborn infants. That’s what they were. I told you she was the old man’s ex-wife, and as a married couple they’d, you know, been intimate…”

“And there were unborn infants?”

“A thousand thousand spiders,” I confirmed, “one for every… I won’t name them!”

“Sperm?” she said.

This time it was me who blushed. Rosie was such a sweet young thing and I loved her innocence.

“Maybe,” I conceded.

“You dirty old man!” she laughed.

“Hey! I’m not so old!” I replied, smiling at her.

“Hark! What’s that?” she asked.

I listened to the voice of the village church clock as it carried to us on the breeze.

“Time to go,” I sighed.

“How many? How many chimes has it made?” she asked, “and remember, when you’re taken by surprise as a clock bell dongs you rarely count the first one. I’ve noticed that…”

“It can’t be!” I laughed, “because that makes it thirteen!”

“Oh, but it is,” she smiled, “thirteen. now where did I put it?”

“Put what?” I asked.

“My scythe. We’re off, old man, and you can walk in my footsteps all of the way. Leave the blanket behind: we wonlt need that!”

“All of the way?” I’d never seen Rosie like this before.

“You know where,” she said, “of course you do… To the party.”

© Peter Rogerson 01.08.21