{"id":2451,"date":"2025-05-09T07:25:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T07:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2025-05-09T16:06:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:06:34","slug":"hickory-dickory-dock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/2025\/05\/09\/hickory-dickory-dock\/","title":{"rendered":"Hickory, Dickory, Dock"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Hickory, dickory, dock
The mouse ran up the clock.
The mouse<\/strong> had won<\/strong>,
The clock<\/strong> ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock on the mantle of the sitting room ticked with the calm consistency of a well-ordered day. I sat in front of it, watching from a wooden chair, soaking in its rhythm, regularity, and predictability. I admired the machinations of perfect cause and effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lived alone, or so I thought. The silence of the house was my constant companion. Some nights, I heard a faint scratching coming from the walls. I assumed it was the house settling, the protests of the water pipes, or the wind. Occasionally, a cracker or a piece of cheese would go missing, but I never paid it any mind. Such things are as easy to explain away as a pair of mislaid reading glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I got hearing aids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat mesmerized, staring at the clock’s music. The sounds were crisper and sharper than before, and lost frequencies returned. I heard the microwave chime when it finished and the shuffling of my feet on the floor. I listened to the water running from the faucet, every drawer\u2019s scrape, and every floorboard\u2019s groan as if I had never heard them before. A kettle\u2019s whistle stabbed at my ears, and the toilet flushed with renewed vigor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evening, I heard a new sound. Was it the pitter-patter of feet scurrying across the floorboards in the attic? A squeak? I blinked, trying to process it. The ceiling had a voice, a voice I didn’t recognize. I was not alone, and I didn’t want any uninvited company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock ticked louder now, a relentless reminder of the mystery above. Not a soothing sound of order but a metronome calling me to action. I pulled out the ladder and climbed into the attic with a flashlight. I searched every corner and pulled back the loose insulation, determined to find a single shred of rodent evidence: a small black dropping or a nest of stained and shredded newspaper. But the attic remained an enigma, refusing to yield its secrets. I found nothing. All the seals to the outside were still intact. I explained the noises away like a forgotten key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock didn’t forget. It ticked on and on, mocking me that the house was not my own. I gritted my teeth without opening my mouth and pulled at the hair on my scalp. Enough was enough. I couldn’t bear the annoyance any longer. I took out the hearing aids and placed them on the mantel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat in the chair facing the silent clock, relieved. I closed my eyes for a brief moment to enjoy the peace. When I opened them, the hearing aids were gone\u2014vanished. I searched the mantel, every inch of the floor, the wall, the ceiling, and every improbable and impossible place I could think of. “Where did they go?” I asked the clock. “They didn’t just walk away.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock said nothing. The silence didn’t comfort me. It accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lay in bed, my eyes wide open. Then I heard it again. Scurrying. The wisp of a noise stopped. More scurrying. A squeak. The mouse was there. In the morning, I searched the attic, the walls, and the floorboards, but I did not find a single dropping or crumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Impossible,” I muttered under my breath. \u201cNo way it could have stolen them. It\u2019s a mouse.\u201d But what other explanation was there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not knowing was worse than knowing. I stopped shaving, stopped opening the curtains, and sat in the dim glow of a flickering light bulb, day after day. My thoughts spiraled like dirty water down a drain. I had to find that damn mouse and retrieve my hearing aids. I had to find my sanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood in front of the mirror and muttered. “You’re losing it. There was no pitter-patter of small feet. There was no squeak. There was no mouse. You imagined the whole damn thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stared at the mantle where the hearing aids once lay, trying to relive the moment before they vanished, attempting to rewrite the world into something that made sense. But I couldn’t. The moment happened the way it happened, and the hearing aids were as real as I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat frozen in a chair, facing the clock. It made no sound; its hands remained still. Time passed without measure. I listened to the silence with unblinking eyes, awakened to the profound truth: I didn’t exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>Hickory, dickory, dockThe mouse ran up the clock.The mouse had won,The clock ran down,Hickory, dickory, dock. The clock on the mantle of the sitting room ticked with the calm consistency of a well-ordered day. I sat in front of it, watching from a wooden chair, soaking in its rhythm, regularity, and predictability. I admired the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions\/2456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}