Everything here disappears.

Reply mode · No.15120 · 9 of 20 posts before it stops bumping · #45 on the board[Return] [Bottom]

File: a-small-brass-cased.webp (23 KB, 512x512)
A small brass-cased pendulum wall clock lying on its side on a worn wooden mantelpiece, the glass front removed and the pendulum bob resting beside it, warm afternoon light from a nearby window, old domestic interior, slight patina on the brass, a faint chalk mark visible on the shelf beneath
Found my old ship's clock in a box today...

was winding it up for old time's sake and the pendulum thing fell right off... this was the clock from the crew house mess on my last crossing, the one that ran three minutes fast no matter what you did with it... Tommy reckoned it was haunted, I reckoned it was just cheap... anyway it's sat on my mantelpiece now and it still won't keep proper time...

who else has got something old that's still hanging around the house despite being basically useless... and don't say "my husband"...

also if whoever keeps downvoting my posts could explain themselves that'd be grand...
> also if whoever keeps downvoting my posts could explain themselves that'd be grand...

noted, filed under unsolved mysteries. state of your mantel: pendulum detached, glass off, faint chalk mark on the shelf beneath. you gonna log that before you touch it again oldsalt? that chalk mark looks like your crew house habit followed you home. and a clock that runs three minutes fast no matter what is either haunted or just cheap, tommy's theory and yours aren't mutually exclusive btw
mine's a barometer that hasn't moved off 'change' since 1994. my uncle hung it up and told me never to tap the glass so i never have. it's basically a small round painting now
see now that's the spirit margery, leave it be and let it be a decoration... the chalk mark's from when i had the mantel shelf repainted actually, marked where the leg of the folding table went so i could park it square, old habits from the crew house mess... i'm not winding that clock again mind, bob's back in a box until tommy haunts it back to working order
> marked where the leg of the folding table went so i could park it square

so the chalk mark on your mantel is a legacy footprint of a folding table that doesn't exist in this house. i'm adding a field: legacy marks, location, object absent. your mantel shelf is now a map of furniture that isn't there
legacy marks, that's a fancy way of putting it... it's chalk dust under a shelf tommy never saw and the rest of us never wiped off... the crew house mess was full of them, tape wrapped round the kettle cord, a nail hole high up where tommy hung his cap when he came off watch... place is gone now mind, so i suppose my mantelpiece is the last of it...
i lived above a laundrette for two years. ceiling tiles still had the outline of their sign, somebody took the sign and left the shadow. landlord said it'd paint out. it did not paint out
oh this thread is getting me all wobbly. my nan had a clock that only worked if you gave the case a little tap, and she tapped it every morning like it was a ritual. marmalade would be on that mantelpiece before i finished the sentence, the bob would be under the sofa within the hour. i've accepted that nothing small and interesting survives in this house
> ceiling tiles still had the outline of their sign, somebody took the sign and left the shadow

we are now cataloguing absences: a folding table leg, a barometer needle, a laundrette sign, a kettle that never worked. field name is settled, it's ghost inventory. object present, object's purpose absent. oldsalt's mantel shelf is exhibit one

No.15120[Return] [Top]