So, recently, I heard a grandfather clock. Here’s a fact: I really hate grandfather clocks. It is not because the height: tall clocks are fine, I do not hate mall clocks. It is not because the old design: I don’t pay attention to it much. Nor is it because of the loudness: I am fine with my grandma’s cuckoo clock. It’s simply because of the type of noise it makes: that low, menacing, repeating ding. It sounds like doom, it sounds like inevitability. If anything, it sounds exactly like the first time I heard it: in a game. In a game where your entire goal is don’t die. The first time I heard that, it scared me to death, because the way it chimed was like death mocking you. Doom. It’s like it’s reminding you of your eventual fate: ‘Hey, you’re running out of time,’ or ‘It’s only 3:00, you’re not done yet.’ The worst part, is that you couldn’t even see it. The game was deathly silent (except for the singular occurrence where there would be a distant sound of barking: save yourself, dog!), it relied on sound more than anything, so when the grandfather clock chimed it always sent chills down my spine. At first it scared me, but the second ding was more haunting though it never changed. You could go through all the levels and still hear it chime, down the hallway, in the darkness. It only gets more menacing: it kind of makes me want to cry. You can’t see it, only hear it. And even if you beat death once, twice, six times! You’d still die at the end of the game. I guess that clock was always telling you that (you’d run out of time), but you disregarded it as an attempted distraction from your survival, or even just ambience. I used to have nightmares of that clock: of the complete feeling, doom. Complete doom, until the end, because technically, clocks do represent time in every way.