Time in the Great Hall.

I sit at my desk listening to the seconds strike out into eternity, and I think back. In the living room of my parent's house was an ornate grandfather clock, probably seven feet tall, gilded with a gold-colored metal. A set of pendulums and weights were exposed above its base through a glass window that was hinged so that one could access the inner-workings easily. The clock was wound with a special key that had a gear and teeth that locked into certain notches. Every week or so, the clock had to be wound and set. The key was fit into three distinctive places, carefully turned an exact number of times, and then the counterweights would reassume their slow descent, imperceptible to a casual observer. The intricate cogs and spokes, unseen, could be heard working just when the house fell silent, at unexpected idle times, an anonymous presence that really became indiscernible from other background sounds. Every quarter of an hour the gears would click into place and the clock would chime out a fragment of a song. At the first quarter, the first four bars, at the half-hour, eight bars, at three-quarters, twelve, and at the top of the hour the full song followed by a number of chimes corresponding to the hour. Each hour of each day played out in this ceremony. Even through the night, as everyone slept, the clock would enact this play to an empty darkened room. Sometimes I would lie awake at night, up for one reason or another staring blankly into the ceiling above my bed heavy with thoughts that would not allow me sleep, and through the wall I would hear it ring out, sad little chimes telling me again and again, "You are awake, time is moving, yet there you lie."

The clock was a complicated machine, and I most certainly appreciate the skill and labor involved in making it. There is much to be said for precision. But the concept always bothered me. Every fifteen minutes of every day, should you be in the house, you were reminded of the passing time with a fragment of a song. One song only. So throughout the day you were involuntary company to the constant repetition of a single song attempting to fulfill itself. It struggled through the hour to come to completion, and when finally the one hour ended and the song at last voiced its unbroken maxim, the chimes would follow it like a death knell. The hands of the clock passed the crest of their orbit, and again within the song the struggle to fulfill itself began anew. A little death every hour, and a little life.

I do not even wear a watch, I never have. I have purchased watches, once again, they are fascinating things, but they remain in drawers until the batteries die out. I have a natural aversion to the idea of obedience to time, which after all is only a concept, however much it is now entwined with our biology and ostensibly dictates our actions. I could never own a clock such as my parents do, that requires and actually commands so much attention that it becomes another entity in the house needing to be cared for. The watches remain in drawers. Time in the Great Hall can move as slowly as a glacier or as fast as lightning, just as it pleases, and sometimes these moments jut right into each other. There are ways for determining the time, should I need to, but mostly I just feel the day passing internally, in my dark wing where there are no windows with which to make such judgements. The emptiness or fullness of my stomach, the dryness of my lips, how far I go into my daydreams, the pattern of movement of the other people here, all are sure demarcations of time.