Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

 

Yes, it's another clock.   There was a call from Mrs. Billingsley for some way of telling the time at night.  I tried to resolve the issue with a little travel alarm clock with a lighted dial, but she said she couldn't focus on it when she was half asleep.  Or maybe completely asleep.  

No, she needed a big clock with bold numbers and a night light.  Well, OK.  So on one wall is the first clock, which is very nice.  On the other wall is this clock.  Then, day or night, there is never a place that one might sit that it is difficult to see the time.  Wonderful.   

Goodness gracious this clock looks pretty in the dark.  It doesn't look like much during the day.  In the daytime, it reminds me of the kind of institutional looking clocks they put in classrooms.  Grim?  Why are the designers of such places always so grim?  It doesn't actually cost any more to be beautiful.  I guess they're sending a foreboding message.   Well, at night, this clock takes on a personality that you would never dream of.  The white, pinched up face becomes a mysterious, glowing blue, and the bold numbers are no longer the blotches of the day.  They are shadows, flirtatiously winking at you in a subtle, but obvious way.   They have put on their party clothes and gone dancing.   If anything, they seem somehow more visible in the dark, with the teasing way they attract attention.   Oh, I can see the time alright.   I find myself mesmerized by it.  

This clock has some sort of spirit in it, living, breathing, cunning.  Is it friend or foe?   Well, it's a little bit spooky, anyway.  Without reading the instructions, I installed the batteries, and turned the clock over to see if the second hand was moving.  To my horror, the whole clock had taken off.  All the hands were moving in a mad dash to get somewhere.  Where, oh where would it end?  Of course it ended at midnight. Where else?  That was spooky too.  I turned it over to attempt to set it to the current time.  No way.  There were strange, alluring little buttons that made no sense.  I pressed them all.   Could the row of buttons with the letters "P M C E" possible be the time zones?  Let's just press C.  Oh, the clock wasn't done.  There was another row.  What could it be?  Underneath was a toggle switch.  Yes No Maybe?  Something about "D L S."  D L S?  From the depths of my being the words, "Day Light Savings" welled up.  I played with the switch and turned the clock over to see if it was still telling me it was midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.   It was still midnight in the Garden.  I don't think it's a very good garden.  It would be midnight forever.  

And so it was that I decided that I would try and figure this clock out at midnight, and put it aside.   

And then, unseen by me, the crazed being set itself to the exact, correct time after being left alone for about 10 minutes.   This is an atomic clock, if that explains anything.  There is something invisible in the air that whispers to it in a voice and language known only between the clock and its invisible companion.   "Who are you?!" I cried.  But there was no answer.   

I gazed fondly at the grim, white face, all sulky in the daylight.  The second hand moved, as second hands are supposed to do.  But this one didn't tick.  It glided ever so smoothly.  

So the whole clock had unnerved me, yet I put it on the wall.  Guess what?  When the dreaded time change arrives for day light savings time, and it will soon be upon us, this clock automatically adjusts.  No need to reset it.   This clock has a life of its own.