September 18, 2012 
The chocolate clock sits in the middle of the living room floor…looking very smug.
It arrived a few days before The Fatdog left and I suspect The Fatdog knew very well why it had come. She gave no apparent sign of concern when it suddenly popped out of nowhere and set itself down next to her old square of carpet. After a quick lick she decided it was the wrong flavour of chocolate and thereafter ignored it completely.
At the time we hadn’t a bloody clue why it had appeared, and still don’t, The Fatdog having taken her secret away with her. Two months on this 6′ chocolatier’s dream of a grandfather clock (of doubtful artistic merit I would add) still clutters our living room and refuses point blank to budge. It’s not all bad news though – it shuffles to the corner of the room when we sit down to watch telly, and then shuffles back to the centre of the floor when we leave the room. The situation is…workable.
Earlier efforts to move it ended in abject failure. Pushing, pulling, lifting, attempted breaking (and eating) – nope…didn’t budge a millimetre. Demanding, asking, suggesting and (most pathetically) begging, met with similar negative responses from this seemingly indestructible lump of horological confection. The emergency services coped very well with the aftermath of the final, desperate, “I know…let’s melt it with a flamethrower!” attempt to remove it. Just as well our insurance cover was up to date.
So we’re stuck with it, this great-granddaddy of all great-granddaddy clocks. Thing is, it’s worse than useless if you want to know the time. Skipping over the fact that it isn’t actually working (and that it’s constructed entirely of unbreakable chocolate) there is the minor problem that its face numbers from 1 to13.
More accurately, I should have said “wasn’t working”. Roughly a week ago, and completely out of the blue, it suddenly began to…”tick”.
Now, I’m not sure if something beginning to…”tick”, having been totally silent since its arrival, is necessarily a good thing. In film plots nothing good ever comes from something starting to… “tick”. Yes, I realise clocks are supposed to…”tick”, but that’s making the gross assumption that it is actually a clock.
Whatever its function there is the distinct feeling that someone, somewhere, has pressed a button and the…”ticking” chocolate clock is now…”WAITING”…for its next instruction.
Author Info
I gotta believe this is allegorical, but that’s where my mind stops…. kinda like the clock.
Are you going to clue us in, or leave us out here fending for ourselves, as time ticks away?
I suspect we’ll all just have to sit and wait to see what it does next.
. 
(If it’s any consolation J didn’t get it either 
– and she should know…sigh!)
There’s really no response to this.
It is even more puzzling than the time my (then) 5 year old grandson phoned me
“What are you up to?” I asked
“I’m waiting.”
“What for?”
“For my other birthday to come.”
Looks like I need to hire him to write for the blog if he is as obscure as that, Squiz!
This post will test the patience of most of the blog readers I’m afraid. I should be here on my own by tomorrow I would think.
Never mind, all stories have to start somewhere…
I suppose I should explain….as his Mum did….eventually. Granddaughter has a birthday very near Xmas, so they decided to celebrate it in June instead. I do what I am told and send present in June, but the other grandparents think that it is a load of nonsense and continue with December. Daughter hadn’t thought it through, because now school friends (invited to the June party)want to know if she is older or younger than them, and siblings, of course, want 2 birthdays too.
I had better go and read more of the blog to find out if all is explained re the clock..
Ah…I see! My mother-in-law has her birthday on Christmas Day. I refuse point blank to believe that it is The Second Coming.
Thankfully she’s a bit past complaining about having her birthday then but I seem to recall her saying it wasn’t much fun as a child. So when is J’s sister’s birthday? Close…the 29th December! Lesson not learned I think
.
The more birthdays the better as far as I am concerned.
As for the clock…”…tick” “…tick”. It’s still there. It’s not about what has been written…more about what will be written. There! That makes it even more obscure than before…and twice as unhelpful
.