Another night in my small office. Storm clouds rolled in and got some of my envelopes wet, so I closed my window the last 2” it was open and picked at a few of the off-white paint strips that didn’t immediately fall off as a result of the vibrations. I was acutely sensitive to the sound of the clock now, suspecting that it made clicking sounds before its hands turned, and it did. But, so it seemed, only in the 9:00 hour, with 9:14 being the loudest. Almost every minute the clock would sound and I’d look up just in time to see the hand move—click, move…click, move.
9:14, loud click, and the phone rang—so quiet was my office and so meditatively tuned to the clock that I jumped at the alien sound of the phone. It rang again—this time more muffled or so it seemed to my ears. “Yes” I said, receiver pressed to my ear, though what I was thinking of saying was ‘hello’. A man’s voice began at headlong speed—the cadence of a salesman—I’d quickly recognized. “No, sir. This is an office building.” He apologized and I set the receiver back on its black base.
In between 9:55 and 9:56, click, silence, the phone rang again, and again it sounded muffled. “Yes…um…yes, hello.” It was a woman’s voice, familiar and close. My heart rose and sank, even deeper. I listened to her words without interrupting, making sounds of acknowledgement here and there. Then she hung up without saying goodbye. I sat in the office for several minutes just staring and not thinking a thing. Only later did it occur to me that for those moments, I didn’t hear the sound of the clock.
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