His Grandfather's Clock

Tick-tock.

The sound was getting on his nerves. It was a steady rhythm that somehow beat out of sync with his own heart and breathing. Who in this day and age still used something as antique as a wind up clock anyway?

Tick-tock.

The answer was simple: The old fart lying before him. Wind the clock, wind the clock. That's all he said lately, staring intently at the polished wooden face with its gilt covered numbers whenever he managed to open his eyes.

Tick-tock.

At least the doctors had finally given up. "Let him live out his last days in his own bed." He could not even begin to describe the last months of commuting to and fro the hospital. The check ups, the treatment, all of it burning a hole in everyone's wallets. They shouldn't have bothered once the doctors said it was terminal. He just couldn't understand why.

Tick-tock.

He wasn't lacking in compassion, he just didn't know the decrepit skeleton of a man that reclined half-propped on a mountain of cushions. He'd never met him, barely heard even heard of him until his mother got the call. Just like that, she uprooted him from his life and dragged him to this blistering hot place that she called 'home'. The flat didn't even have any air-conditioning.

Tick-tock.

How could anyone live in this crap? Old newspapers, random half-repaired junk remained stacked in corners. Layers of old cardboard lay stacked and tied neatly with string. Before he came, they had been littered almost everywhere. Why did he collect all of this anyway? For sale? He knew that Mom remitted money as often as she could. He couldn't imagine why. From what he gathered, the old man hated her. Never forgave her for something she did years ago.

Tick-tock.

Blast it, if he couldn't afford his own treatment, how could he afford that annoying clock? Couldn't he have sold it or something? Some rich nut would surely pay for something like this.

Tick-tock.

Wind the clock. Wind the clock. He'd been doing it for days without so much as a word of thanks or even a decent attempt at conversation. He knew the man wasn't senile, he just didn't want to talk about anything but the damn clock. Did he think that keeping the gears moving would prolong his life?

Tick-tock.

He'd had enough. He wasn't going to wind the thing any more just because he was asked to. He'd been reminded even more often the last couple of days. He was just going to let it wind down.

Tick-t-

...

The hollow wheezing seemed a lot louder. Phlegm and sputum made for an unpleasant orchestra for a dying man's breath. It bubbled and gurgled, sometimes accompanied by a suffocating whisper. Yes, he realised, that was the sound of a dying man.

It was an elegy of slow and painful suffering, where one had run the race of life and now could only limp to a finish line that only loomed in sight, never letting you touch it until you'd reached the absolute end of your tether in pure agony. That was the song that played on the failing lungs of the old man.

He listened to it for a long time, wondering at the loudness until his eyes drifted back to the now silent clock. Its annoying ticking, long ceased, had masked the horrible song.

After a moment, he stood up and wound the mechanism. Nobody would want a loved one to hear the sound of their passing.

Tick-tock.