Gulf Coast has published my flash fiction, “Wheels and Bushings,” and I could not be more thankful. It is a story that has been brewing in my mind for years. Whenever I visited my grandparents’ apartment as a child, I slept on the couch in their living room, right under a very loud clock that chimed every quarter hour. Even though it often kept me awake, I grew to love how its song formed part of the rhythm of my visits with Grammy and Papa. When my uncle who inherited it discovered how much it meant to me, he kindly shipped it my way. It is the only item of my grandmother’s that I have. The day it arrived, I was not prepared for the emotion it inspired in me and my kids. The children gathered round it, laid hands on it. For weeks, they checked on it after school, kept it company like it was a living thing. I often sense my grandmother’s spirit inside it. The clock is not worth any money; it doesn’t keep proper time anymore. Too big to look right on any of our furniture, it’s rather clumsily placed on a side table next to our couch. But the chime is one of my very favorite sounds. And I am delighted that my grandmother’s clock found a way into my fiction.
