My story began on a frosty December morning in 1991, when I was built by an eccentric old clockmaker in an apartment in Maastricht, Netherlands. It was there I spent the golden days of my childhood, ticking away in joy. Alas, my happiness was short-lived. Soon, the clockmaker hauled me to his shop, a dark, dusty flat right above his living quarters. At first, I was miserable - after all, a beauty like me didn’t belong with the common timepieces in the scrappy store. As time passed, however, the rundown little shop almost became a home to me. I even found companionship in two ornate cedar clocks, Mr and Mrs Brown.
Unfortunately, four years later, my world was upended again. One evening, a middle-aged couple entered the shop in search of a clock for their brand-new house. My comrades and I expected them to pick one of the newer models, but when they caught sight of me, their eyes seemed to widen in glee before they turned to each other, whispering excitedly. Nine minutes later, I was lying in the trunk of their car, being driven to their house in Amsterdam.
While my latest residence looked homely from the outside, I soon learned it wasn’t the safe haven I had hoped for. No, my new owners had three dreadful children, who seemed intent upon causing my early demise. The eldest daughter, Elsa, often tapped callously on my delicate glass visage, traced my intricate engravings with razor-sharp fingernails, and yanked me open to see the bottle-holder behind my door. The five-year-old twins, Dirk and Lara, dashed madly around the house every single day. I lived in constant terror of being knocked over and destroyed.
After a month of this misery, I decided enough was enough. At the stroke of midnight, when the family was nestled snugly in their beds, I climbed out the window, onto the road, and into the warm bakery just next door. I was discovered by the delighted baker, who placed me upon the mantle above the hearth. For a decade after that, I watched over the boulangerie with a flowerpot and candelabra for company.
But in the first week of 2006, disaster struck. The baker passed away, and I, along with his other possessions, was shipped away to his niece, Charlotte. Charlotte took one look at us, sighed heavily, and shut us all up in an attic full of cobwebs. I must admit, being tossed among broken playthings and unusable tools was a severely harsh blow to my ego. The year I spent in that loft was the worst of my existence.
Still, I didn’t lose hope, and a year and three months later, things began to look up for me again. Queen’s Day, or the birthday of the Queen Juliana, was approaching. Every year on April 30th, the people of Netherlands celebrated the deceased queen by dressing in orange, hosting parties, and most importantly, selling everything from decrepit furniture to fashionable outfits on every street in the country.
At the crack of dawn on the 30th, my fellow inmates and I were finally released from our prison and laid out on Kerkstraat, a narrow, cobbled street guarded by towering buildings, with an elegant church at one end. Soon, other stalls were set up around us, and hoards of shoppers arrived to poke and prod at us, deciding which of us was worth their money. I waited with bated breath to be chosen, but hours passed and no one spared me a second glance. I began to despair. What if no one picked me? What if I was tossed back into the attic, all alone this time? What if I spent centuries there, until I wasted away and ceased to exist? Just as I was about to give in to those dark thoughts, I spied a couple walking purposefully towards me. I straightened up with anticipation, praying that they would decide to purchase me. The woman, who seemed to be pregnant, enquired how much I cost. When Charlotte replied that they only had to pay five euros for me, they were ecstatic. They carried me to their canal-house that overlooked not a canal, but a football field. Please don’t ask me to explain why, as it puzzled me, too, for several days.
While I wasn’t trying to fathom what sort of house they lived in exactly, I spent my time observing the house’s occupants. They were lovely people who treated me better than anyone else ever had. They asked me the time, rewound me when I gained minutes (for while ordinary clocks slow down over time, I speed up) and brushed me down when I grew dusty. When they gave birth to a baby, I watched over her. When they moved to India, I moved too, satisfied as long as I was near them. I travelled all over the world with them, in fact, and yet it never frazzled me. For, wherever they took me, one thing stayed the same - I was finally home.
Disclaimer: This piece of writing was originally published by Timbuktoo Young Authors Publishing in its anthology, Precious, in 2021.
