The antique carriage clock

Written for Sunday Scribblings 2 where the given word is Wind

It was almost eleven and time for Bert to retire to his bed. He shuffled across the room to the fireplace and opened the glass cover on the old carriage clock which sat at the centre of the mantelpiece.

Since inheriting his grandfather’s clock some seventy years ago, his final task of the evening, every evening, was to wind the clock. Its' familiar clunking tick- tock was the only sound in an otherwise silent house.

He picked up a brass key and with a shaking hand inserted it into the hole in the the clock face.

But this evening he hesitated. Instead of winding the clock he stood for a few seconds, withdrew the key, closed the glass cover and made his weary way to bed.

When his daughter called in as she did every morning, she sensed that something was different. Then she realised, the house was silent; the familiar clunking tick-tock of the old carriage clock was missing and its hands had stopped at three minutes past eleven.

As usual she went to his bedroom to help him get ready for the day. But Bert had passed away during the night. And in his hand he held the brass key.