Merry Go Round

The Clock has a Tale

It was midnight exactly when the spell was done. It allowed them to change how time was run. They could change the time from moon to sun.  By their accursed hands time could be spun. But this witch craft and magic the people did shun. The three crones that made me they tied up and strung. From the old oak tree their bodies were hung.

At three fifty four, they knocked down the door, spilled all the crone's possessions on the floor. They were to burn it till the last straw. But one young man who was quite poor, upon the floor a beautiful clock he saw. And once he made absolutely sure, that no one was looking at the hut anymore, he crept back in through the broken door.

At ten twenty six or there around, he picked me up off the ground. He carried me through the night without making a sound. I was close to his chest and could hear his heart pound. If the other villagers caught him he knew he'd be drowned, thrown in a river his hands and feet bound. For the penalty of saving a witch's possession would surely be death if found.

He sneaked me back to his house, as noiseless and creeping as a mouse. He proudly presented me to his spouse. He hung me up on the wall, an empty place by the entrance hall. My beautiful clock face did guests enthrall. I was passed from one generation to the next, but the story told in this written text, is of a shopkeeper by my presence hexed. I tick and I tock, I am the clock and I have a tale to tell.

This is not the first time, that I have witnessed this exact same crime.

Eleven fifty one, the shopkeeper's work is done. He begins to pack, clear the racks, of items he did not sell. In this moment of peace he cannot tell, the terrible event that will make his life a recurring hell. At eleven fifty two all is well.

Eleven fifty three he begins to mop the floor. He is good man who abides the law, he is neither rich nor poor, he is quite frankly a bit of a bore. As he slowly mops, his right leg knocks, against the bucket full of water drops. The bucket topples and soaks the floor, he now has to do another chore, he straightens up, his back is sore.

Eleven fifty four, I can measure from the turning of my gear. He hobbles up to the counter's rear, and takes out a bottle of beer. He quickly drinks it down, so that his fatigue might drown. But then his relieved smile turns to a frown, when his wife enters wearing her best evening gown, she says that she is going to town.

"I've made up my mind, I'm leaving you behind. You're not bad, but you're just so sad. You are dull and boring and you have no life, therefore henceforth you won't have a wife. Goodbye to you, that's it we're through." she says this with rage, at the dull man who receives an average wage. A man who she feels puts her in a mundane cage. She doesn't want to spend her life with this grey man, and his utterly monotone life plan. She doesn't want to in his company grow old and age. So this is it, she's turning a page.

Eleven fifty seven, my cogs click and clink. In a blink, the shopkeeper fueled by drink, and unable to think. Pushed his wife spurred on by forceful hate, the wife staggered back and as if by ungodly fate. She slipped on the floor still wet, her face an expression of shocked upset. The stone tiled floor hit her head, and within a heartbeat she was dead.

Towards the corpse the shopkeeper walked, before the bleeding body he balked. He went down on his knees, no one heard his panicked please. He had killed his love, with one strong shove, he had killed the one he had once called dove. He cried and wept to the heavens above. But he knew that a single part of him was glad, that he had killed her as he had. He realised this and with guilt he was filled, and he yelled and screamed by the one he had killed. He begged for time to be rewound, to the time before this grief profound.

It is eleven fifty nine, and as the shopkeeper for his wife pine. In his pitiful pleading, for time repeating, I feel something stir in my very being. Within my gears and cogs I feel energy prancing, I remember the three witches dancing. The most powerful spell, is awakened by the shopkeeper's yell. Through me the magic flows, through the shop like a gust it blows. First time slows, then it stops, then begins to trickle backwards in tiny drops. My needles begin to spin in reverse, time flows back as according to my curse.