The Clock

The month she asks him to leave there are signs: earthquake, hurricane, a dead rabbit on the threshold. In retellings, she will claim to have buried the corpse, but in truth she scoops it with a shovel, puts it out with the next day’s trash. For weeks she arranges and rearranges piles—plates, cutlery, bedding, photographs—as if solving a complex equation. The day of his departure, the mantel clock stops. Inside, the dead cell oozes into gears, and though she scrapes away the corrosion, a new battery is not enough. Still, the hours pass, though not exactly as before.

Photo credit: Robert Klurfield