TICK-TOCK

When Obinna died, the big, ugly clock in the sitting room did not stop ticking. It would beat for five more months before the Duracell batteries died. Then Daddy changed the batteries. He bought Tiger batteries. I watched him sit on the broken sofa, softly hit the clock on his laps, and the dead batteries fell out and rolled on the floor. I picked them up and tried to see the sign of deadness on them- Nothing. They weren't even leaking. Not like Obi, with blood pouring from every orifice.

“Leave it.”

Daddy was always stopping Obi and me from touching something: the cassettes, the sound system, the standing fan, his clock. Mummy said he bought those things as a bachelor living in a one-room apartment, and if he was careful enough to keep them, so should we. So she always said to be careful whenever she saw Obi and me kicking a ball around the sitting room. She said it that morning before we left for school.

“Be careful. Hold your brother. Take it easy.”

Mummy is never explicit with commands like most mothers. She didn’t say, “Hold your brother because the road is busy” or something like that. She just told you only what you're supposed to do. No extras. Daddy is straightforward like that too, so I didn't know why I felt his commands to me after the accident sounded like they were cut short. I interpreted “Leave it” as “Leave it because you don’t know how to hold on to something.” “Don’t touch it” meant “I don’t want you to break this one too.”

I dropped the dead batteries and watched him put in the new ones, clean the face of the clock with the corner of his shirt and hang it back. Then I sat back and listened to the tick-tick-tick sound of the clock. It sounded like the heartbeat we couldn't find in Obi.

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