Sonakshi Srivastava

If you’re not satisfied with a digital clock, a grandfather clock, a cuckoo clock, a wristwatch, or any other mechanical clock, then this guide is for you.

 

Materials:

A reflection for a face               remembering my mother’s portrait

Sandpaper                                  a soap for her disintegrating body

Hands                                                     always moving

Hard cardboard                         that assumes a fleshy texture

A base                                          to rest the foundation

Drilling tool                                a remembrance of her hum

Numbers                                     seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. 

Glue                                                        refusal to let go

String                                                      refusal to let move

Hanger                                                    refusal to run

Strong Will                                  that reminds me of bones.

 

Step 1: Design Your Clock Face

The first step towards assuming any form of being is to choose a face. A face distinguishes one from another. A face sets one apart. I want my mother’s face. My mother’s face is my face is the clock’s face. 

Drooping eyes that refuse to close.

Drooping eyes that never seem to blink. 

Drooping eyes that perennially leak.

Drooping eyes that look so old. So serious. Like time. 

 

Step 2: Cut and Shape the Clock Face

An outline is ready. It is never difficult for genes to follow the time-tested path of permutation and combination. Is this also how it works for rules? The outline will need some trimming. Use a piece of sandpaper to smooth out any protruding parts, to achieve a silky texture. 

Like time. Time slips, shapeshifts. Like my mother. Give it the illusion of stability. 

 

Step 3: Drill a Hole for the Clock Hands

We move from the face to the body. The limbs need rigidity. They need fixing –- for what is a clock without two hands? Place your clock face on a sturdy surface and mark the centre point for the hands. This is where the hole will be drilled. Be careful with the sizes –- of the drill bit, of the hands.

They drilled her well. Precisely. Exact to the inch. To suit their characteristic routine. Never once did her hands falter. Never once did they betray. Like any good clock’s hands. 

 

Step 4: Assemble the Clock 

Insert numbers as indicators. The Institute of Time Regulation recently published a study on the importance of weighing and measuring everything against numbers –- be it productivity or feelings like love. Make sure to choose a good battery. Deferred hopes and an enfleshed heart will do. 

With numbers come consistency. Things are more definite. People, too. They become predictable. Easy to calculate. Easy to regulate. Easy to control. Like her.

She was too ordinary to be noticed, but her precision made her extraordinary. She was never late to anything, never late for anything. She was punctuality incarnate. She never tired, never tarried. Her presence conveyed urgency. Like time trickling away.

 

A Tip for Users:

There exists no better clock than a mother. Wind the springs and watch her work.

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Sonakshi Srivastava is a writing tutor at Ashoka University, and the translations editor at Usawa Literary Review. Her MPhil dissertation looked at the biopolitics of ability and debility in contemporary fiction. She was part of the 2021 cohort of the South Asia Speaks mentorship programme, where she helped translate the Hindi novel Titli into English. Her work has been generously supported by the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Granta, the Sterling College Diverse Voices Fellowship, and the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts. Her writing may be found in the Usawa Literary Review, Proseterity, The Monograph, Connect ASAP, the Alipore Post, Hakara, potluck zine, orangepeel mag, Qissa mag, NICHe Canada, the University of Wuerzburg Press, and Rhodora, among others. She dabbles in memes, speculative futures, and zines in her free time.