The clock that must stop
Jan. 21st, 2012 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI 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...
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...