Where?
No-one is quite sure where they have gone, but at some point during the night they grew legs and scurried off to their lairs, in caverns in the mountains or caves by the seashore. Some scampered away to deep forest hideaways while others returned to open moors. A few unfortunates found themselves restricted to towns, to skulk near rubbish tips and keep company with the foxes and feral cats.
The grand church clocks and their relations from the town halls across the land strode purposefully to their ancestral homes, while the sarsens (not the vinegar – that’s Sarson’s) flexed their enormous muscles and lumbered away from Stonehenge and Avebury and Clatford Bottom to take their repose.
What the humans see on awakening are impostors. The originals will return in the Spring when the clocks travel forward again.
It is the end of British Summer Time.
What of the digital timepieces? Do they really deserve the title of ‘clock?’ They are soulless, with no heartbeat and no agency. They are not worth consideration.
