Last Monday, March 25, 2024, I went to a well known departmental store in Abuja and bought four wall clocks at eight thousand Naira each for use in my village house where I now dwell on and off. In this time and clime, many will question such a purchase when almost everyone has a timing device on their phones. How will the four clocks be distributed in the house?
One will be in my room. The others will be in the main parlour, the dining area, and the children’s parlour where members of my household and I find ourselves most of our time in the course of our daily work and recreation. By the way, Why buy wall clocks and at such a princely sum at this time and age when one can find out the time of the day or night at a press of a button, one may ask?
Am I being a slave to my upbringing or is there something special that I can get from the wall clock that the electronic time devices cannot offer me? Yes, there is something the wall clock has and does that I do not find in other devices of its kind. And what is it? It is its chiming. Its timeous, dutiful, consistent and persistent ringing or rhythmic reminder to man that he has a duty to do on this earth and that it is time for him to either wake up from his slumber or get up from his doldrums and do it without giving himself or humanity a loadful of the usual excuses. Yes, this is the message of the wall clock to me and I think that whoever invented that device and put that chiming in it, has done humanity a great service.
The wall clock is a great invention. It is on duty 24 hours of the day unless some of its consumables such as the battery and the metal components that cause its turning are consumed and it cannot function any more. If not, our friend is on call every second, minute and hour of the day reminding humanity that life is work. He says that every time of the day, we are on duty and he is here to help remind us that it is time to sleep, time to wake up and pray to our creator, time to get up and start work on the things we have planned for the day. Time to eat, time to make visits we may have planned for. Time to make babies if it within us to make such babies and recreate the world, time to bury loved ones that have been called to the great beyond by their creator. Time to do everything on the earth. It is those who fail to heed this great message of the clock that are deemed failures in life.
In the primary school of my days, we were taught the importance and function of the wall clock. Tick-tock says the clock. What you have to do, do it quick. For, there is no time to waste. That teaching imbued in us the virtue of attention to duty and the imperative not to be idle and free talking. I have since then grown to hear and be reminded of the reminding work that the wall clock does in our lives. It tells us or rather reminds us of the things we must do at all the various divisions of the day which becomes a part of our minds when we become adults.
The clock tells us that there are sometimes grave consequences if we do not do certain things at certain times when they are supposed to be done. We are told in the Bible in 2 Samuel 11 that the great King David tarried and became laidback at home at a time when kings in his time were supposed to hurry away from home and be leading their armed forces in war fronts. And what happened to him for this failure to be where he ought to have been? The devil compelled him to see a beautiful woman bathing and tempted him to have an affair with her which had a lot of calamitous consequence on his life and rule. It nearly cost him his life and reign were it not that he enjoyed the mercies of God.
The wall clock is supposed to remind us that it time to go to school and time to come back home. It is time to play and time to retire to bed and be refreshed to keep on doing the duty of living. Until death do us part, I will continue to be guided and reminded of what I need to do per time by the chiming of the wall clock. That is why I went and bought four clocks at such seemingly high price per piece. I still have many more pieces to buy: one for my kitchen, one for the sit-out area, another for the second parlour. One, for the entrance and waiting foyer, another for the visitors’ room. One for the guest room and another for what I call my mother’s visiting room. And one particularly forthe girls’ room because, they, more than any ones’ else, need to be reminded always that it is time to prepare for an event and leave the house and not be late to it.
Do you, as me, know the importance of the chiming of the old invention called the wall clock? Are you guided by its speechless messages 24 hours of the day? It was 3: 19 today, Wednesday 27th March, 2024 when the wall clock in my living room in the Abuja house summoned me to pay respects to its sense of duty of reminding humanity what it ought to do at all time. And by exactly 5: 30 a. m, this duty of giving honour to my friend, the wall clock, was done.
I hope to do more to give a well deserved recognition by leading a movement to campaign for the dedication of a day to honour the Wall Clock. Happy Wall Clock Day when that day surely comes to pass.
