Stopwatches and Clocks (Never Open A Box In The Dark Winner)

Stopwatches and Clocks

The cardboard box hits the ground with a resounding thud. Meemaw has gotten worse about hoarding her scrapbooking shit and this box seems to be full of half-completed books that are heavier than a keg of grease. I wipe my sweaty hands on my jean shorts and try to rub the pain out of my red, angry fingers.

I can smell her baking downstairs despite the summer heat. Maybe it's just hot up here in the attic. I can't open the one window up here and there aren't any plugs, so I can't set up a fan. At least no one can say that I don't love my Meemaw. I wouldn't be doing this otherwise.

It's hard enough for her now that Papa's gone. She shouldn't have to deal with moving all his shit to the storage locker Mom started renting out. I have a car. I can do it. So I'm here now, lugging boxes down the stairs on a humid ninety-five-degree afternoon.

I take a break to breathe deeply through my nose. I choke on a bit of dust in the air and-- is that mold?

Great. Fantastic. There's mold in the corner and it spread to this gigantic box that I've been carrying. This is wonderful.

Immediately, I know that I'm going to have to move everything out of that stupid corner and into different boxes. Finding this is worse than the time I found black mold on the dough mixer at the pizza shop I used to work at. At least I could wipe that down with bleach and call it good. You can't do that with cardboard.

I drop to my knees to begin the tedious work of taking things out of green-bottomed boxes. There's something at the back of the pile that isn't a plastic bag full of stickers or deco tape. It's a long, thin black box with golden clasps and an ornate carving on top that depicts a grandfather clock.

I pull it from its cardboard nest. In a desert of scrapbook paper and Papa's old challenge coins, this is a black-watered oasis.

The box isn't locked. I undo the clasps and pop it open. I'm not sure what to expect.

It's full of photos and letters. The only non-paper object is a small black bag that holds something shaped like a disc. I decide that I'll look at it last.

If I'm being honest, the bag looks like my roommate Padma's dice bag. I'm talking about the high-quality black velveteen one that she carries to her roleplaying sessions, not the old lunchbox she keeps the majority of her dice in.

Something is ticking, like a grandfather clock in the walls. It's faint enough that, while it's shocking, I can ignore it for the most part.

I pick up the rubber-banded stack of photos. The top one, which is presumably the most recent, is a print-out from a few weeks ago, right before Papa died. There he is, in his hospital bed, hooked up to a thousand machines with his skin sagging off of his bones and his once-strong body horribly frail under the fluorescent lights. He holds Meemaw's hand and a small pocket-watch on an Albert chain.

When I see him, I can't help but smile. At the same time, it makes me want to cry. I miss him. I can't begin to imagine how Meemaw feels.

Grief is such a hard emotion to describe. I feel like, sometimes, I'm doing perfectly fine. I'm coasting through life; I'm skimming the top of the water. Then I'm reminded of him, and of the other people and things I've lost, and I'm... overwhelmed. I'm lost in a sea of emotion. The waves keep crashing over my weak, human head and I can't get a single breath in.

I set the photo on the dusty floorboards and wipe tears from my eyes with dry, angry fists. I can cry all I want, but it isn't going to fix anything. It won't help anyone, either.

At least no one can see me or my wet knuckles and red cheeks.

I look at the next photo. It's from the early 2000s, a year or two after I was born; the red date in the corner of the picture proves as much. Meemaw and Papa are on the couch in this one; it's a different couch from the one in the living room. They got a new one last year. Papa is holding the same pocket-watch with the same chain. It's a delicate silver color, even in this blurry flash-colored-and-saturated photo.

It must have been special to him. I wonder where it is. Knowing Meemaw, it's probably in the china closet somewhere, in a black velveteen box.

There are photos just like these, with Meemaw, Papa, and the watch, stretching back until about the seventies. There's a picture of the two of them holding the watch. In that photo, Meemaw is still in her wedding dress; Papa is in his suit, with his tie undone. They both look so happy and I have to pause to wipe away tears once again.

It doesn't stop there, though. The photos go even further back. One is labeled 1934. I know for a fact that Meemaw wasn't even alive then. She was born in 1949. There she is, though, in this photograph, looking the same as she did on her wedding day.

It has to be her, though. She has the same birthmark under her eye and the same small scar by her chin. The man in the photo has to be Papa, too. I would recognize him anywhere.

They go back further, into black-and-white photos and daguerreotypes. All of them feature my grandparents and this delicate silver watch. One is dated 1853; another is dated about a decade later.

I don't know what to make of it. I set all the photos aside and move on to the letters.

I don't know what to make of these, either. They go back even further than the photos, to the 1700s, to the 1600s, in different languages and places. I don't know what to make of any of this. I try to read some of the letters, but the words swim in my head and I can't concentrate. It doesn't help that the dreadful ticking is getting louder.

Remember to bring the watch.

The clocks in the hallway grow louder every night; I can't sleep. When you come for your visit, please remember to bring the watch and the silence.

I miss you, my dearest.

Is it really that time once again? Have you chosen a sacrifice?

The time once again comes for a sacrifice.

I miss you, my dearest.

The clocks are in the walls now. They grow louder.

I flip through the letters furiously. Most of them are love letters or banal recollections of everyday life, but some of them reference the clocks and a sacrifice. From what I can tell, they're talking about using human blood to fuel the stopwatch, which will stop the clocks in the wall and allows them to stay alive forever. Sure, my mind might be making some leaps and bounds, but I think I have the general gist of it.

My grandparents are murderers.

And here in the black bag, hidden by a drawstring and fabric, is the stopwatch itself. Here in the walls are the clocks that are screaming at me. I can't think. I can't breathe.

The floorboards creak behind me as someone ascends the stepladder into the attic. I know it's Meemaw. I recognize her steps from all the nights I stayed over and heard her walking past the guest room to her own bed. I know the sound of her heavy legs-- heavier than they were in the sixties, and the eighteen-sixties, and further back than that-- like I know the bones in the heel of my hand.

"Abel, honey, what are you doing?"

I look up at her and I can feel the fear on my face. An icicle of terror stabs into my gut. "I--"

When she sees what I'm holding (the letters and the photos and the little black bag), her face turns dark. "Oh. So you've found it."

"Meemaw, I--"

"Don't say anything." Her voice is flat and disgusted. "I didn't know that was up here."

"I know what you did," I plead.

"Then you hear them, too. You hear the clocks in the walls. And you know what comes next, Abel?"

I shake my head, clutching the letters to my chest even though I know that won't help me.

She smiles. "The clocks will catch up to you, and, with them, something far worse than death."

And I hear them. I know they're coming for me. I know they're coming for her, too. They are surrounding me like vultures circling overhead; they are surrounding me like portraits in a hall.