It's About Time

In this digital age, I still depend on two battery-operated clocks.  Chores are dictated by sunup and sundown, but there are occasions (occasionally) when I actually need to know what time it is.  When the batteries get low, the clocks slow down.  For a while, it was kind of fun to convert slow time into real time, but then the batteries in both clocks died almost simultaneously.  I wasn't in a hurry to perform a resurrection as there are glowing digitals everywhere.  The clocks in the living room and kitchen hang high on the walls and are a challenge to take down and more of a challenge to put back.  They hang on little nails in drywall instead of studs and so if the clock isn't centered just so, the little nail slides into the wall and must be pulled just far enough out again.  And again.  This weather, days of rain combined with strong winds, is when we lose electricity from trees and branches falling on power lines and so yesterday the time had come to put in new batteries, just in case.  No power, no digital clocks.  It was as expected, an exercise in patience and repetition.  Both clocks make a ticking sound as regular as a heartbeat, reassuring on the silent, dark nights when the house has gone black, letting me know I'm still in touch with the real world.