WHAT MAKES YOU TICK?

COMMENT: Consider Old Grandfather.

Grandfather, What makes you tick?

GF  Tick. Tock

(You cannot shake him by the hand. His hands go round and round cutting eternity into ticks and tocks.)

Grandfather, What makes you tick?

GF  Tick. Tock

(Open his door. No one is to be seen hiding behind the long pendulum or crouching in the hood behind the face with its moving hands. There are two cylindrical lead weights, pulled by gravity. They move the escapement and pendulum. This enables the hands to tell the passing of time and the bell to sound on the hour.)

So does gravity make you tick, Grandfather?

GF  Tick Tock

(The weights move down until the karma which raised them up is exhausted and they stop.)

Is that what makes you tick, Grandfather?

GF  Silence.

(What force will raise them up again, creating the karma that will then unfold? There is nothing in the clock with all its metal parts, wood and ornamentation to provide a clue.)

What will make you tick, Grandfather?

GF  Silence.

Do but watch and wait. And listen. For the footstep in the hall. Wait and watch.  For the hand reaching out from outside the clock. The hand with the key. The key for the keyholes in the face. The karma-forming hand. Which winds up the weights on their chains. Which gently touches the pendulum. Which releases the escapement. Which moves the hands. Which....................

Grandfather, Who makes you tick? 

GF  Tick. Tock.

Whose hand?

NEW PROJECT: CENTRE!