The clock that must stop

I keep thinking there must be a smart parallel to be drawn with that childhood notion that even a stopped clock is right twice a day - but actually of course that isn't right, because time is a measurement of change, not of stasis. A stopped clock is never right, a dead thing, a waste of time and space.

Except -

There's a clock here in the Silence Room. A ticking clock. Except that it almost never ticks.

It reminds me of another childhood time line, an alleged review of the latest Rolls Royce where the reviewer allegedly said "the loudest thing in the cab here is the ticking of the clock," and Messrs Rolls & Royce allegedly looked at each other and said, "We must do something about that clock."

Here in the Silence Room, they do do something about that clock. Repeatedly. I come in, and it's ticking away; I come in again, and it's not. Over and over again. It fails far too frequently for a mechanical problem, if it was that badly busted they'd fix it or take it away; and it's far too frequent to be simply a failure-to-wind, no mainspring runs that short. No, I have figured this out, and it's a device. The failure of ticking is an artefact. The silence of the room is defined by the silence of the clock, the absence of that ticking. But it's notoriously hard to prove a negative, so we must needs be constantly reminded of it. Several times a week, the thing must tick, simply in order that that tick be taken away. Audibly taken away, again and again and...

How to cheat on the Bechdel test

Hee. Go meta, young man. From this morning's WiP:

I suddenly wanted to talk to her about Jacey, but I was damned if my own life was going to fail the Bechdel test. Instead I said, “Julie,” in hopes that she would reply in kind, “tell me what happened down in the station. Is Reno all right?”

Two women: tick. With names: tick. Talking to each other: tick. About something other than a man: tick.

I wonder if my editor will ask questions...?

Globularity

These are very rolly tomatoes. I keep bombarding poor Mac. Who endures it, and then looks up with that look that says "But I don't like tomatoes! Drop sossidges on my head! Sossidges!"

(There are, as it happens, sossidges. There is also fresh bread, and there will be piperade, if these tomatoes will cease to flee the knife. Why is it that everything, everything ends up on the floor? I used to think I was just clumsy. Then I thought I sheltered a poltergeist. Now I'm fairly convinced that it's a syndrome.)