The Clock that no Longer Tells Time

I am no longer of use. That much is clear. They pass me by like I’m furniture— just another shape gathering dust in the corner of the kitchen where light rarely lands. My face, once proud, is smudged now— not by time, but by its absence. I used to hold their mornings together: 6:45, the hiss of the kettle. 7:02, cereal spiraling into bowls. 7:58, the door slammed shut, keys jangling like wind chimes in panic. Tick, tick, tick— I was the rhythm keeper, the metronome of breakfast arguments, lipstick checks, missed buses, hurried goodbyes. Now— my hands are frozen. The second hand doesn’t dance. It just lies still, like a breath never finished. They never noticed when I stopped. Funny, isn’t it? How silence becomes so complete it disappears. I don’t blame them. Time belongs to the living. And I am— what? A shell? A relic with numbers no longer tethered to the sun? But I remember. I remember the boy tapping his fingers in rhythm with mine waiting for the school bus. The mother balancing a baby in one arm, checking my face with the other. The teen staring blankly, hoping the right second would fall into her lap like forgiveness. Time isn’t only forward. It’s weight. It’s story. And though I no longer tick, I carry them still. I was there for birthday candles blown out at 8:45, midnight fights spilling into dawn, a newborn’s 3:16 cry splitting the dark like lightning. I was the witness to everything they couldn’t hold on to. Sometimes the old man still checks me out of habit. He glances, pauses— then turns to the microwave instead. But in that second, he remembers. Not with words, but with motion. I was his shape of time. Even if I don’t move, I mark him. I remember the silence after she left at 3:43 AM. How he stared at me, hollow as the house. The girl with the black eye who didn’t speak— just looked at me as if I could explain something she couldn’t. Christmas mornings. Burnt dinners. The sound of ticking meant someone was still home. Now I hold those moments like seeds buried in wood. No hands turning. No ticking. Just memory, soft as dust. They’ve replaced me— with glowing green numbers that blink and reset with every outage. But I was never just numbers. I was rhythm. I was presence. Even now, in stillness, I’m full of motion. I don’t count forward anymore. But I measure what remains. I’m not broken. Just changed. A keeper of echoes. A vessel of before. Even in silence, I am ticking. Not forward— but deeper.