The Unwinding

Arthur wrestled the damn thing through the doorway, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The grandfather clock was taller than him, dark oak, ornate, and smelled faintly of dust and forgotten cigars. It was another one of his 'finds,' dragged home from a dusty estate sale he’d sworn was going to yield a fortune. Clara stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "Another relic, Art? What’s this one supposed to do, tell us it's time for the apocalypse?"

He grunted, letting the base scrape against the worn floorboards of the living room. "Just needed a good home, Clara. Look at the craftsmanship. They don't make 'em like this anymore." He wiped a hand across his forehead, leaving a smudge. "It'll fill that empty corner." She just scoffed, turning back to the sink, the clatter of a plate against ceramic loud in the sudden silence. The corner wasn't empty; it was just... quiet. Like most of their house lately.

Days passed. The clock stood silent, a hulking presence. Arthur tried winding it, fiddling with the pendulum. Nothing. He declared it a project for the weekend, then for the next weekend, then it just sat there, a monument to intentions. Clara mostly ignored it, though she’d occasionally brush dust from its dark wood, a quiet, almost maternal gesture for something she’d initially scorned. One Tuesday, though, she found him staring at it, a peculiar frown on his face.

"It's ticking," he said, not looking at her. His voice was low, almost a whisper. "I didn't do anything to it. Just… started." Clara walked closer. She heard it then, a faint, rhythmic *clack-clack-clack*. But something was off. Her eyes went to the minute hand, then the hour. They weren't moving forward. They were creeping, undeniably, backward. "What in God's name?" she muttered, leaning in, her ear almost to the glass.

Arthur just shrugged, a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Must be broken in a new way. A unique way." They watched it together for a full minute, the tiny hands reversing their slow march, erasing time. Five minutes became ten minutes ago. Ten became fifteen. It was unsettling. Like watching a film reel spool backward, but with the added anxiety that this was *real* time, happening *now*. Or rather, un-happening.

They laughed about it, that night, over lukewarm takeout. A novelty, a conversation piece. Arthur even joked, "Maybe it'll un-cook dinner for us." But the humor thinned with each passing day. The persistent, soft *clack-clack-clack* became a new kind of silence in the house. It was a constant reminder, an inversion. Every time Clara glanced at it, the hands were somewhere in the past. Always the past. She started to feel it, deep in her gut.

She'd catch herself staring at it, the hands crawling back to three years ago, five years ago. It felt like a mirror, reflecting their own relationship. The fights, the sharp words, the quiet distance that had settled between them like dust motes in sunlight. It felt like they were unwinding, too. Erasing the laughter, the easy touches, the promises whispered in the dark. It became unbearable, a presence that choked the air.

One evening, Arthur was on the couch, lost in a football game. The volume was too loud. The clock, in the corner, kept its steady retreat. Clara felt a sudden, cold anger bloom in her chest. "Can you turn that down?" she snapped, her voice sharper than she intended. Arthur flinched, then narrowed his eyes at her. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with *me*? What's wrong with *us*?" She gestured wildly at the clock. "That thing! It just sits there, always going backward. Always reminding us of everything we messed up, everything we lost. It's a curse, Arthur!" She felt her voice cracking, the old pain bubbling up. "Remember when we used to… remember *us*? That clock feels like it's taking us back to the moment it all started to fall apart, only we can't stop it!"

Arthur stood up slowly, the remote forgotten on the cushion. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in what felt like forever. His face, usually set in lines of mild exasperation, softened, a flicker of something raw in his eyes. He walked over to the clock, not bothering to turn off the game. He reached out, his fingers brushing the cold glass, and then, with a slow, deliberate movement, he just… turned it around. So its face was to the wall. He stood there for a moment, his back to her, to the clock, to everything. The sound of the backward ticking was instantly muffled, but she knew it was still there, quietly unwinding behind the veneer of dark wood, just out of sight.