The sounds of time

Last year, we purchased a cuckoo clock in Germany. It was not an easy purchase to pre-approve with Jase. I spent months convincing my sceptical husband that it would be a delightful little addition to our lives.  What a lovely lifelong hourly (and half-hourly!) reminder that we didn’t just dream our entire trip! But apparently my having a readily available ‘mute’ button rendered me Unqualified to argue that a cuckoo clock is Not Annoying.

In the end, I think it was the charm of the Black Forest that won him over. But, regardless, the purchase of the clock came with a few rules.

First, the cute little couple kissing on the park bench? Not going to happen. They were replaced with the manlier, jolly beer drinkers instead.

Second, no night switch = no clock.

Third, it would have to be my responsibility to activate that night switch and put the cuckoo to sleep. Every night.

So I happily agreed, and the clock was shipped back home.

My brother-in-law came around to help us mount it on the wall. Afterwards, Jase moved the clock handles around manually, so we could test it. On the half hour, the cuckoo called once, then disappeared behind its door again. But on the hour, it burst out of its door with merry little ‘cuckoos’, one for each hour! Our Oktoberfest beer-drinkers responded by thudding their beer mugs on the table, in time to the bird. And when the cuckoo’s call finished, the various little figures spun and twirled around to a musical melody.

I looked at my sister, our eyes equally lit up, and we beamed at each other!

My brother-in-law gave Jase a smirk and said, ‘every hour, huh?’

That night, I dutifully pushed in the night switch to silence the bird. Next morning, Jase looked a little bleary-eyed so I asked him how he’d slept. And was greeted with this.

‘Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, TICK.’

Each time he said the next ‘tick’, his voice got a little bit louder and his eyes bulged out of their sockets just a little bit more.

Oh no.

I chuckled nervously. ‘Oh … the pendulum tick kept you awake. Ohhh … that’s not good!’

‘Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, TICK.’

‘Well maybe you’ll get used to it?’ I was feeling deeply guilty at this stage, being exempt from nightly sounds, and not having thought of the possible ticking sound before we made the purchase.

‘Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, TICK.’

‘Shall we eat some breakfast then?’

‘Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, TICK.’

Poor Jase was delirious, so I sidled over to the clock nervously and deactivated the night switch in a bid to cheer him up.

And the hourly merriment brought some joy into the house again!

Until the first time I forgot to use the night switch.

I woke up the next morning, yawned and stretched. Smiled over at Jase, who was wide awake, and popped in my hearing aid so we could have a conversation.

‘Sleep OK?’ I asked him.

He answered with 40 ‘cuckoos’. One for every call he’d endured through the night, from midnight to 7am. One for every cuckoo call I’d blissfully slept through.

I laughed and tried to interrupt him, but he wouldn’t have it. He wasn’t going to engage in any conversation until he’d completed the 40 cuckoos.

When he finished, I grinned sheepishly at him.

‘You forgot the half hourly ones.’ 

***

People often ask me if I can hear the clock. (Right now? No.) With the hearing aid on, I was able to hear the cuckoo call if the house was relatively silent and I was watching the clock. Sure, it sounded like it’d taken part in some of the Oktoberfest beer drinking down below, but I could hear it! If there was background noise, the sound would be lost. If the house was silent but I was in another room, the repetitive noise pattern could just as easily have been Jase with one of his sneezing fits.

I have never been able to hear the sound of the pendulum tick. (Haven’t scored much sympathy from Jase for that.)

I’ve also never heard the hourly melodies to which the figures spin around. Even with the hearing aid volume on as loud as it could go, and my ear pressed up against the clock, the most I could pick up were the bass sounds, never the melodies.

In addition to the lost frequencies, my ears could not give me clear, distinct sounds anymore. With the hearing aid on, the brain was always working to decipher the noises. 

It is going to have to work in the same way to help me decipher noises through a cochlear implant.

But I’m quietly hoping the cuckoo sounds less inebriated some day.;-)