The Unclock

The laughter ceased, while he put up a solemn face. The crowd realized that this was no joke. He was dead serious.

His eyes shone in the radiance of the oil lamps, on this chilly autumn night. He was a watch maker. A very good one at that .The watchmaker commissioned to build the clock to be put up at the new railway station . The year was 1919 , the war has just ended. And here he was standing , facing men in long coats and ladies in hats. For the laughter to die away . Before . Before he could speak.

To explain the reason for hilarity and the reasons for it’s casualty , let me go back a couple moments and explain how it happened.

The laughter arose because of a particular anomaly of the machine of gears and coils , it self . While the coils unwound and released time, unlike anything the people has ever seen the hands were marking the elapse anti clockwise. ( Which made this an anti clock , I guess.)

First they thought it was a mistake and were amused by the this pradicament . This triggered the murmur and leading to a roar of laughter. They could not believe he has made this crucial error and now how his 15 minutes of due fame is going to be drowned in shame.

But then he spoke

“I built it that way” he said . “I want the time to go back , for the wounds of the war to be disappeared . Wives to have the husbands they lost. And Children to have their fathers come home “ He paused .

He was listening to his heart beating. The crowd listen to it too.

“I want the days to go back and undo the cruelties; I want my son to come back”

Suddenly the clouds of absurdity parted and it all began to make sense .

So now you know how it happened .

Those of you , who has watched the movie of Mr Benjamine Button , knows this scene .

But I am trying to draw your attention to the notion.

We have lived in fear for 30 years , buried our sons and wept at funerals after bomb blasts .

While looking at the things happening in the Serendib during last fortnight , I can not help but to wonder in my politically naïve mind, whether we too are going back to the point where it all began ?

You tell me.