TIME TO GO

Ted was a well travelled man, & thanks to this he had picked up a stubborn tropical infection which caused his lower legs to become oedematous & ulcerate. Prior to me visiting him for wound care he had been treating his legs himself by spraying exit mould on them daily. Ted lived alone & after I got to know him well he confided in me that his dead wife communicated with him through the grandfather clock in the lounge room. The clock was huge & looked quite out of place with the rest of the décor – Ted informed me that it was a family heirloom.

Some recalcitrant ulcers can take months or even years to heal, & we were not making any progress. One day I realised that Ted had actually been tampering with his wound dressing & had been using the exit mould again – we ended up having a slight altercation. The clock in the lounge room started to chime, I looked at the time & it wasn’t on the hour. Ted told me that it was his wife & that she wanted me to leave the house….and so I did. Ted & I later talked on the phone, we made our peace & I was able to visit him again. He assured me that everything was okay & that his wife actually liked me. I never heard the clock go off again & we eventually got those ulcers healed up.