Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Events Remembered Differently & Clocks in Fiction

30 Day Blogging Challenge

PROMPT May 9th
Choose an event in your life that someone else remembers differently. Describe both memories and debate the differences. Who do you think is right? Why do you think you remember it differently?

I have a friend who got pregnant at 23. She was unmarried and I had only met the guy she had been dating briefly in a pass-by when I dropped in to visit and he had been leaving. I hadn't been crazy about him. Any guy not interested in meeting a girl's besties is not a keeper. But I vividly remember her calling me at work and tearfully telling me she had gotten pregnant.

Many years later, when her daughter was a teenager I heard her retell the tale to someone and I was struck by the change in the story. I figured she had changed the story so that her daughter did not realize that she had been an 'accident'. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to argue over it. Her daughter is my God-daughter and I figured I would let it lie.

Her daughter got to meet her biological father may years later when he had returned to Canada. She had not been impressed. I applaud my friend for not tainting her daughter's opinion of him and I also applaud her daughter for seeing through his self-centeredness to realize she had not been missing anything.

Blog City - Day 2124

Flash Fiction: Write a short story about a clock.

Father Time. Big Ben. Clocks had certainly gained a name for themselves. And here, in the old Atlanta home ,the Grandfather clock standing in the front hall of the stately mansion had also been named by the children years ago. The name stuck. Geoffrey.

Geoffrey towered over the foyer like a stately butler, but he was more than that and the children had sensed it. They would stare up into his clock face and swear he was watching all the goings on. He had been there forever. He had seen everything. He hid the secrets of the house all within his cogs and wheels.

His deep, droning chime pealed through the house on the hour and half hour marking time and fixing the events within his lacquered wooden frame.

When Tully and his family came to visit he would stare up at Geoffrey uneasily. His mother would whisk him away scolding him for dallying, but he would always return. Curious.

One evening dark into the night, Tully ventured from his bed in the wee hours of the morning. Geofrey's chime had dragged him from sleep and he wandered down to stare up at the regal face. The rhythmic tic tock seemed to lull Tully who stood rooted to the spot. Whispers rose up around him. When he looked around he saw no one, but the stately clock seemed to grow within the space.

"You've come boy. Do you want to hear? Do you want to know the secrets I hold dear?'

Tully nodded, unable to speak a word.

"Death hides behind this great facsade. It shakes its fists upon the fraud."

Tully's skin prickled as he felt a cold breeze float over him. He dared not move.

"Ancestors killed to protect their name, now its happening all the same."

Tully wrapped his arms around himself.

"You must leave and take your mother, lest you stay and raise the bother."

A ripple of fear tripped along Tully's spine.

"Stay here and I foresee the trouble, get out before the state of rubble."

Tully moved then. His feet carried him up the stairs where the sound of voices raised in anger caught and bounced around the balustrade.

At his door he called out sharply. "Mama. Mama."

She came then and he could see the bruise. Her face darkening in several hues. Her voice it soothed him and she ran her hand across his brow. "There, there." she cooed trying to reassure, but Tully tensed and would not relax.

"Can we take a walk outside?' he whispered, muffled within her comforting hug.

"Outside?" she questioned and looked into his eyes. A beat past and then she nodded. Taking his hand they slipped down the stairs, grabbed their coats and boots to go.

Geoffrey chimed a deep goodbye as they sailed out into the worn out sky.

Morning found the place in ruins. Dark with charred remains still foul. Smoke filled the air and choked all on the prowl. Only standing, seemly untouched was Geoffrey in the smoldering remains. One body was found a gun in hand. Whiskey in the other.

Wrapped in blankets beyond the caution tape, Tully stood wrapped within his mother's embrace. Their shocked expressions taking in the scene. The wrecked, wicked, awful scene.

Tully looked upon that clock and could swear he saw it wink and grin. Then he turned and taking his mother's hand led her off without a whim.