The Old Creepy Clock

Do you need time?

By Tracy Schruder

Grandma thought we needed time, or possibly maybe she needed more time…. We inherited an old gingerbread clock from my husband’s grandmother. It was blackened with the hands of time. The colour resembled tar, and it had the same consistency when we took off a test scraping. My husband told me of the history of the clock and how his grandmother brought it to Canada from Germany just before the Second World War. “It always sat centrally, above the fireplace on the mantle,” he continued. “My grandmother would wind it every day and then she would fix its hands to make up for the lost minute or two.”

The clock was handled every day for eighty-plus years. It was a wedding gift from Dora’s (grandma) father. Grandma and Grandpa were married in the early nineteen hundreds, so I believe the clock to be at least a hundred years old.

When we got the clock, we didn’t know much about patina, save for what we’d seen on the show Antiques Roadshow. We decided to strip, stain, and varnish it. We wound it up and used it for about three years. This clock would ring every hour on the hour for the amount of times of the hour.

Yes, twelve rings at midnight, and all through the night. This never bothered my husband because he grew up during his summer breaks at Grandma’s. I got used to it in about three months and came to welcome its bell. It was soothing during sleep, for some reason.

We would wind and set it daily, up into the second year of owning it. Then, for some reason, we could go a few days without winding it. Lucky strike, we thought.

On occasion, I would come out of my bedroom and find the clock with its door wide open and the key on the floor. My husband would joke, “Grandma is keeping time for us.” I’d chuckle and try to see the humour, but deep down, I had a chill. I already have a sixth sense for these things, so I knew jokes or not, she was visiting us.

The clock never needed dusting, either. The glass door remained crystal clear. Granny was keeping it clean, I thought. Although, based on the patina that was on the clock in the first place, I don’t imagine she was concerned about the dust.

It must represent the time warp that we’re experiencing, I thought.

I cleaned it the once. I guess the goofy part is the clock itself stayed in that zone. With this clock, anything is possible. I read somewhere that keeping an old antique or non-functional clock in the main hub of your house could create a time warp of sorts. That time would be distorted in some way. I personally experienced unexpected delays and missed important deadlines. I felt as if time itself was haunted. Some days, we even seemed to lose time; others, we seemed to gain. It was like we lived in a time outside of time. Like déjà vu was becoming the norm. There was tension and arguments between us, for reasons we could not fathom.

With this clock came a negative force of some sort; whether it was Grandma or something else, it didn’t matter – we had to give it credence. We decided to see if what I read had any truth to it, so we placed Grandma’s clock in the basement. And, what do you know, time became manageable again. No more delays, no more missed appointments or deadlines. The atmosphere of the house became joyful, loving, and understanding. We both excelled at living and growing.

We still hear the clock chimes echoing up from the basement from time to time, and the door will be open on it some days, with the key laying on the floor. I just replace the key and close the door and whisper, “Thanks, Dora, we don’t need any time – we’ve got this.” And carry on.