There was an old ticking clock by my mother’s bedside. It was rusty and old, not even much of an antique. Nonetheless, it was always by her bedside.
“It’s ticking” she would smile and stare at it with childish adoration. The truth was, the clock never ticked. The batteries had run off at least a decade ago and they were not in circulation anymore. But I knew better than to tell her. I had learned earlier on that it would only entice fits of confusion and rage. Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night only to hear my mother talking in a high-pitched voice to her ‘ticking clock.’ Any interruption would lead to her screaming in my face, with tears running down her cheeks: “My mom is in that clock!” In my head, she was just a senile old woman who was delirious most of the time.
Days passed into years, and her obsession consumed her over time until it was the only thing she knew. She had forgotten her name, and I was reduced to ‘the woman who took care of her.’ Long gone were the days when my mother engulfed me in her arms and talked me to sleep. I couldn’t even touch my own mother without her flinching. Her days were hysterical phases of talking to the clock in an elevated voice, and her nights were even worse. Sometimes, she talked so loudly that the neighbours would threaten to call the authorities. It wasn’t long before that voice turned into a constant noise- like a bee buzzing in my ear. This inevitably forced me to look for secluded places. We settled for a small dingy cabin that was once a storeroom.
It was a hot sweaty night in April when she was at her worst. She wouldn’t even nap anymore; she would just keep talking in shrill voices that threatened to prick my eardrums. It was almost as if the more I closed my ears, the louder she got. Peaceful naps became a luxury I could ill afford. Sometimes, I would resort to sleeping under the apple tree somewhere down the road.
It was May when the buzz got too loud for me to even hear my own voice. I felt like there was an entire swarm of bees in my ears. I kept screaming over her voice but I couldn’t even hear my own screams. And then- I strangled her. I strangled my own mother because she wouldn’t stop talking. I held her in my arms until her delirious body had gone cold. A day later, I buried her under the apple tree down the road. She always loved apples.
Today, my hair is grey, and my past is nothing but faded memories from another lifetime. Most days, I can’t even remember what I used to look like. My daughter moved me back to the house that was once my mother’s. Sometimes, when I sleep in my mother’s bed, I can smell the rose perfume and the sandalwood soap she always used.
It was a hot sweaty day in April when I heard the clock by her bedside start to tick. The escape wheel had started to grind inside the clock- I could just feel it! Through the face of the clock, I could see my mother smile at me- just like she did when I was a child. Her dulcet voice filled my ears as she said, ‘Thank you for the apples.’
Why does my daughter keep telling me to stop talking to the clock?