A question of time...

"The-time-is-two-fourteen--p-m", said the watch.

Put that ever-so-slightly disconcerting synthetic female voice through a reverb and you'd scare many a schoolchild to death.  Put a hi-hat, kick and snare to it and you might have those same schoolchildren downloading a ringtone of it in their droves.  I amused myself by selecting numbers and pressing the time adjustment button in syncopation, like some early techno or some later bad commercial techno.  "The-time-is... the-...the-...the-the-...the-time-is... 1..2..3..4".  No-one noticed I was doing this of course.  Not even my mum who is quite used to my ways.

My grandfather has always been an old man to me. In my earliest intelligible memories he was already retired from his job as a testing engineer at Rolls Royce, and well into his 60s.  At the time he probably would have been referred to as an older man.  The transition from older man to elderly man and now to frail elderly man has taken place over my entire life time.  He is now in his mid-90s, me in my later 30s. 

The irony of relative time and the passage of it.   How do we mark time passing?  Where are the milestones by the side of the road?  Do chapters in our lives create their own time zones?  I pondered these things as I attempted to adjust the time on his talking watch and amuse myself with its robotic tones. My grandfather's deteriorated eyesight means that the digital numerals on the face are devoid of any use whatsoever but clearly he still finds it important to know what time of day it is.  I was going to ask why, but I felt that I already had asked one too many stupid question.  Why would he need an alarm setting?

It seems that I am the only person who has figured out how to set the watch - I guess the manual disappeared a long time ago and I somehow figured out the correct combination of buttons to press in order to get it into setup mode.  From time to time I am called upon to remind myself of how I did it and then do it again.  It felt good to be of use, anyway.

I was quiet on the way home.  I am usually quiet after visiting my grandparents.  And my parents are usually quiet after visiting my grandparents.  Discussions had taken place. Time was at the centre of them.  "Now is the time...".  "There will come a time..."   "It's time they....".  "It's only a matter of time..."

I stared out the window and took in the countryside, the bright skies and the beginnings of some greenery in the hedges that we scurried past.  I was tired.  I hadn't slept well again. But, just perhaps, during that morning time had caught up with me a little bit too.

"Alarm off"
"Alarm on"