On the second day, after they change the clocks back, it starts to rain.
Claire is pissed--not about the rain--but about the clocks. “Fall back - one hour, come hell or high water,” she thinks.
“God, why do they keep doing that? Just how much more light do we need in the summer--the basis for the whole clock-change thing? Back in the day--ok-- more light to plant and harvest. But now, 2015, really? Here it is fall and we find ourselves in some kind of dismal abyss, trying to adjust to the early darkness . Just leave the damn clock alone!”
“We’re all running around asking: what time is it?” She complains.
“Only seven o’clock, really? It seems like nine o’clock. Doesn’t it?”
“Is it too early to go to bed, yet?” she asks her husband. “What time is it, now? I’m not tired but I feel like I should be.”
At lunch--alone in the house--she looks at the clock. “No wonder I’m hungry; it’s one o’clock! But yesterday at this same time it was two o’clock--so by all rights I should be famished at this time of day.”
Everyone is confused. Even the Yorkie, Patty is upset. She wants her dinner at the regular time--five o’clock. But they don’t give it to her because the clock says “four.”
“Damn it all, we’re hungry, too but it’s too early to be eating dinner--besides no one has cooked it yet,” Claire frowns.
So exasperated, only three days into the “new-time”, when the rain first started, Claire breaks down--feeds the dog “early”--eats some cheese and crackers, drinks some wine for dinner--“early--and after watching some ridiculous reality-show on T.V., is disgusted and goes to bed-- “early”. The dog doesn’t know about the clocks and so, without hesitation, she follows Claire upstairs to the bedroom--her doggy nails clicking on the wooden stairs-- clickity-click-click. Patty settles into her little bed at the foot of Claire’s big bed.
Claire slips into sleep--quietly, softly and dreams of bridges and rising water, crossing a bridge--the water so high her feet get wet and cold. She holds onto the bridge rail, with both hands, slowly making her way across. Halfway over the bridge, she wakens--with a start.
“Where is Chanticleer? Come home, Chanticleer! It’s still raining,” Claire hears herself say outloud--or did she? Was it the dream?
“How ridiculous,” Claire chides herself. One of the children named their rooshter Chanticleer--after an animated film--Rock-A-Doodle-Do or something. It was about a rooster leaving the farm to crow and be the “King” in Vegas. Without him the sun didn’t rise and the rain--the relentless, cold, murky rain--kept falling.
Claire sits up in bed and looks toward the windows. Rain is streaming down the panes. The yard light is shining yellow and blurry in the distance. She lies back down on her pillow, “Chanticleer,” she whispers and closes her eyes.
© Glenda Mace Kotchish
February 2016
