Tick Tock

The changing of the clocks threw me off. The sun rose and went down when it should have, the cats and I got hungry on schedule, the hours passed in orderly fashion as dictated by the earth's rotation, but the clocks told nothing but lies about it all. Well, not all. The clocks tell the truth about television, but then television itself tells lies.

I could have left the hands of the clocks where they were, but then I'd have been out of step with the things other people are doing. The fact that other people are in sync with clocks and television makes me suspect that they, too, are liars. I will have to pretend to lie myself (to lie about the lie,) just to keep hidden from them my knowledge of their falseness. But I will know. I will know that the sun is truthful and the clocks and their minions deceitful.

This is all very unsettling, for now. But bit by bit the days and the clocks will grow closer together, by some trick of the earth's gradual turning, and eventually things will feel right once more— until spring, when the clocks will tell lies again. For the next several days, things will remain disturbing, and I'll be dazed by afternoons too dark and evenings that rush upon me too soon. Time will do what time does, regardless of the clocks. It is not possible to lie away the passage of time.


( Sunday Verse )