I'm assuming you're familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart.
If not, I highly recommend that you read it, perhaps even before
you read my own little parody. However, my story can still be appreciated on its own, if you insist.
* * * * *
Insane?
Me? Is that what they're saying? That I'm crazy, mad, wacky, zany, pixilated, Looney Tunes, unhinged, demented, full-goose-bozo, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and otherwise missing a few flights of stairs to the attic?
No. Certainly not. Not
me.
I mean, I
loved that old man! He was like a father, or perhaps a grandfather, or maybe a step-uncle... to me. I stayed with him at his boarding house even as all the other lodgers had left, one by one. He was so sweet and considerate. There wasn't a single thing about him that was unlikable.
Well... Perhaps there was
one thing: His
watch. His old Timex
® digital wristwatch, twenty years old or more. In fact, it wasn't even the watch itself, admittedly... That was harmless enough, I suppose...
It was that annoying
beep the watch made, every morning at seven o'clock! It was so much louder than it had to be. Than it had any
right to be!
That sound drove me...
ummm... never mind.
Sweet old man.
Lovable old man. He was a lover of gardening, and of all things related to the past. He eschewed the most modern technological conveniences.
He didn't own a CD player, or even a cassette player. No, he owned an old-fashioned
turntable, a "record player," he called it. And he owned strange vinyl objects he called "LPs" and "45s."
His television was old, too. It was a color TV, true, but it probably dated from the 1960s, well before I was even born! It stood on short legs, like a bureau, and had a wooden cabinet. And he had a huge TV antenna on the roof. No cable or satellite for him, no sir! And no DVD player, of course. No VCR, even!
He read books, and magazines, and glorified in the writing of letters which he posted by snail mail. He owned no computer, nor even a primitive word processor. He had a contraption called a typewriter! A wondrous, noisy machine that wasn't even electrically-powered. Fascinating.
And his telephone -- a land-line, of course, no cell phone for him! -- sported something he called a "rotary dial." I never did understand how
that worked.
Most impressively, in the building's foyer, at the foot of the stairway to the second floor -- the floor where the boarders lived and slept, as did the old man himself -- was a
real antique. A lovely old grandfather clock, with a proud and loud chime that would sound
every hour,
on the hour! I wasn't much for the old-style ambiance of the dwelling itself, but even I loved that majestic clock.
And... I did love the old man.
But... but... that
watch, that
Timex® watch...! It was so relatively
modern, why did he love
it so?
It was
not one of those that sounded every hour, on the hour, as did the grandfather clock. No. It only sounded
once per day. At seven a.m.
Seven was when the old man woke and hurriedly got dressed, in order to have breakfast ready for all of his tenants by 7:30. He'd walk downstairs, take the morning newspaper from outside the front door, and proceed to the kitchen, which was adjacent to the dining room.
Well. I say "all of his tenants," but by the end, there was only myself renting a room. The others had moved out, one by one. Why? I'm not sure, but I have my suspicions...
I would go to each of them,
every single day, and discuss the maddening sound -- and I mean "maddening" in a strictly
figurative sense, of course -- of the seven o'clock morning "beep" emitted by that infernal Timex
®, and though they
all said it didn't bother
them... that they didn't even
notice it... I knew that
that sound was the reason they all moved out! They
had to have heard it every morning, as I did. It was so incredibly intrusive.
It's just not fair that, as I age, my eyes grow weaker and my hearing remains strong! There are so many people I'm tired of listening to, but so much I still yearn to see!
So. As much as I loved the old man, I knew there was but one solution to the seven o'clock intrusion upon my senses.
I had to murder him. I simply had to! I had no choice in the matter.
For a full week, I would rise at night -- I slept all-too-uneasily, in anticipation of that morning
beep! -- and tiptoe into his room. There he slept soundly, and innocently, and I could not bring myself to do the dirty deed which I'd planned. But of
course I couldn't! I didn't hate
him, I hated that damnable
beep!
On the eighth night, I slept more soundly than usual, and rose only slightly before six. As I had the previous seven nights, I stealthily made my way to his room. I entered it. And waited.
And waited.
By 6:59, I had advanced to the very edge of the old man's bed. And one minute later, when that cursed beep sounded... I smothered the old man with his own pillow.
I thought it only fitting that I should inter the old man's remains in the garden he loved so well. The garden was in the backyard, isolated from the prying eyes of any neighbors. During the remaining morning hours, and part of the afternoon, I was able to leisurely dig his grave and replace all the flowers atop his resting place after having tenderly deposited his corpse in the hole I'd dug.
The rest of my day was uneventful. I went to sleep relatively early, and slept until approximately six-thirty on the following morning.
It was at "approximately six-thirty on the following morning," you see, that a knock came at the front door.
I was surprised and somewhat taken aback by the thought of visitors at such an early hour. I was further disconcerted when the two men turned out to be uniformed policemen. By way of introduction, they explained that a concerned neighbor had called them after having noticed that the old man's daily newspaper still rested on the welcome mat from the day before. (Although, at
this stage of the game,
today's paper rested beside it.)
"Oh," I explained, bending to take both papers off of the mat, "the old man left for a short vacation, only two days ago. I would have noticed the newspaper myself, had I left the house for any reason yesterday."
The officers asked if I minded if they were to look around the house, pointing out their lack of a warrant or indeed, any "just cause." I was perfectly within my rights to refuse, they told me.
Did I refuse, you wonder? Naturally not. Perhaps I would have, had I
truly been insane, and uncertain, and paranoid, and nervous, and antipasto and paraffin and ammonia and Kim Novak...
But I was none of those. A little bit country
and a little bit rock'n'roll, perhaps, but fully sane otherwise.
I even offered to make coffee for all of us -- on the stove-top, in a device the old man called a percolator -- while they searched the house for signs of foul play.
After their search (which proved fruitless, of course!), we sat at the large table in the dining room having our coffee. The dining room was situated in the rear of the first floor... and it was with a perverse satisfaction that I realized that right outside the room's one open window was the old man's garden, his final resting place!
I smiled serenely, thinking of the old man as he slept his final sleep, appropriately dressed for same in the pajamas he'd worn as I smothered him. Would that I could have smothered his watch's beep as well, the way I had...
It suddenly occurred to me that I had been careless in one terrible respect.
The old man was still wearing his watch.
The old man was still wearing his watch.
And seven o'clock was approaching!
In a scant amount of minutes, the alarm would sound, and my hideous deed would be revealed to the policemen, who sat there sipping their coffee and chatting with me.
But surely, you say, the fact that the body lay beneath several feet of dirt would prevent the policemen from hearing that insidious beep? (You
did just say that, or at least,
think that, didn't you? Don't deny it! I know your mind as well as I know my own, and the old man's, and the policemen's, and George Clooney's...!)
Silly reader! Have I not told you how
loud that beep was? They
would hear it!
I stood and closed the window, as if that would help. Foolish me! That would scarcely be enough to muffle the bleating sound that threatened to rob me of my freedom.
I began pacing. And sweating. One of the officers politely asked if I was well. I blamed the perspiration on the hot coffee, and the fact that I had closed the window, which effectively cut off the cool morning breeze that we'd been enjoying.
The officer suggested I open the window, but my quick mind replied, "I have a better idea! Let us have our coffee on the front lawn, as it is such a beautiful day!"
Suiting the action to the word, I took my cup of coffee from the table, and marched out of the dining room, fully expecting them to follow... which they did.
My aim, naturally, was to get them as far away from the buried corpse and its accursed adornment... because seven o'clock was rapidly drawing nearer.
The three of us had reached the foyer. I was about to fling the front door open, and then realized with a powerful feeling of frustration that if we did indeed step into the front yard, there wouldn't even be closed windows or a building's walls to shield us from the deafening trumpeting of the relentless beep.
I stared at the grandfather clock. It was 6:59... twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes since my woeful act of murder.
I was defeated. I accepted it, and standing in the middle of the foyer, my arms splayed Christ-like, I screamed "It is finished! I am undone! Tear up the back yard! Beneath the garden lies my victim, wearing his god-forsaken Timex
®!"
I had scarcely spoken before the dreaded hour of seven arrived, and the nearby grandfather clock pealed so loudly as to hurt our ears.
It was
so loud, in fact, that I didn't even hear the beep of the old man's Timex
®.
And neither would the
policeman have heard it, had I only remained silent for a few seconds more...!
Wow. That's
crazy, man,
crazy!
* * * * *
Ha! See? You thought I was fudging today's theme by writing about a Timex
® watch
, instead of a clock.
But the story was actually about the clock in the foyer!
Heh.
Thanks for your... time. (Pardon the expression.)
