Accidental Ambivalence

In Which I Show the Crazy

I don't believe in ghosts. At least, not exactly. I guess it's more that I don't believe in ghosts in the Halloween-y, haunted house sort of way. Like everyone else, I've heard about spirits communicating through lights and sounds, and every time a street light goes off when I walk or drive by (which happens quite a bit), I wonder if it's supposed to be some sort of sign.

I have a ghost clock.

I live in my great-grandmother's house; she died five years ago in February. I sleep in her bedroom, and on the dresser sits a clock that's been there my entire life. It's battery-powered, and it used to drive me crazy when I would spend the night when I was little. It ticked really loudly, and I have a tendency to count such things: steps, beats in songs, clock ticks. It's hard to sleep when you're counting.

When I moved in a year ago, I left the clock, but didn't replace the batteries. One morning, lying in bed and pretending that I wasn't awake, I found myself incredibly annoyed. It took a while, but I finally figured out that it was the ticking clock. Which is weird, right? When I went to bed that night, the ticking had stopped, so I figured I made it up. I sometimes do things like that.

In the year since I moved into the house, the clock has started ticking a dozen or so times. Even in a low-energy device, isn't five years a long time for batteries to maintain power? Even intermittently? So the question becomes whether this is just a weird quasi-electronic thing that I'm reading too much into or if it's something more.

I'm not sure. But I'm still going to call it the ghost clock.

Labels: everyday musings, my insanity

posted by nicalyse @ 11:22 AM