At first I thought it could be the positions of the hands at midnight that could be brushing on each other, causing friction, hence the jam. But then, at midday when the mechanism worked exactly like it would at midnight, the clock never stopped.
I was puzzled so I decided to send the clock to my friend, Mohammed, who is a very skillful watch repairman. After a day, Mohammed rang me up and advised me to take the clock back. "A strange thing happened," he said. "The clock, upon midnight, started to 'ding-dong non stop'". Those were his exact words. He had to manually stop the pendulum from swinging, to stop the clanging. Obviously, I was tickled.
At the shop, Mohammed was looking tired and a little spooked. He said in Malay, "Jam kau masuk hantu, lah" - (Your clock is possessed by an evil spirit) He told me to throw it away but I couldn't, it was my late father's favourite clock. I remember the day my father brought this clock home. He was so proud of it. He hung it on the wall and dusted it everyday. He would wind it every month without fail. He never let the clock stop, not even once.
Once, when he was sick and lying in bed, he made my mother take care of the clock as if it were a living thing. We, my family, found it peculiar that he was totally devoted to the clock.
Although tickled, I felt uneasy after what Mohammed told me about the clock being possessed that I left it unused for a couple of days. During those couple of days, I couldn't sleep very well. I kept dreaming of a giant with a huge club pounding on an enormous gong which gave me terrible headaches.
I decided, then, to take the clock to a "bomoh" (physic). I knew my dreams were related to the clock for obvious reasons – the gong.
The physic was a very old and frail woman – somehow, they always are – who possessed powerful spiritual magic. She handled the clock carefully, then mumbled some unintelligible verses. She looked at me and said indeed the clock was possessed and the spirit, a Jinn, that was trapped inside was very angry.
I asked her how the spirit got inside in the first place. She replied that it was put in there by my late father to grant him special favours. And, in return, the spirit must be fed, and the clock, cleaned. My father did all that as a ritual but when he died, we, didn't carry on the care. The Jinn was neglected and was hungry and angry.
In retrospect, I do remember good things started to happen after the clock was bought. My father got a raise, my sister who was unable to bear children, gave birth to a baby girl - everyone was surprised, even the doctors. Yes, it's true, many good things did happen until my father died 5 years ago.
Maybe the Jinn's resentment had something to do with my wife's miscarriage 4 months ago. I don't want to find out.
I left the clock with the "bomoh". I didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. The memory of my father will come from my head and not from the clock.
No comments:
Post a Comment