Like the Prose: Challenge #24 – Write a descriptive piece about an object in your home/room.

It stands a silent sentinel just to the left of the front door. Tall. Brown. Regal. Its curved headpiece provides a warm welcome to all who enter, and its gold-inlaid face serves as a gentle reminder of the graciousness of an earlier age.

The carved corners and straight lines of the main case are petite for such a figure, lending a feminine cant to the piece. Inside the central glass, shiny brass weights rest, frozen outside of time, unused, unusable, but somehow conveying a sense of willingness.

“Fix me,” the timepiece seems to whisper, as the daylight turns to night and the shadows lengthen on the wooden floor. “Make me useful again.”

And if the twilight deepens to just the right shade, if the evening is quiet enough, the air almost seems to echo on the hour: the four bars of the Westminster Chimes followed by the resonant bongs that mark the specific time.

But then the magic is gone.

The hands, behind their glass, are still unmoving.

The chains don’t carry the weights up or down.

There is no ticking or tocking from this Grandmother Clock.