He sat in his comfy old armchair with his eyes closed.
In the hall, the noisy timeworn clock put out a sombre tick-tock, tick-tock. A sound that for him declared a sad, ‘come-back, come-back’. It had been this way since she left. With every cycle of the unseen mechanism came the haunting mantra. Its message was for her. He heard it clearly. ‘Come-back, come-back.’ Each time it repeated the same request, the same pleading chant. It was a hopeless toll that offered no promise, no consolation. There was no comfort in it, only a heartfelt plea. A yearning to turn back time; to make everything right again. More than three decades had passed since everything was right. ‘Come-back, come-back.’ He had never understood why she left.
If she ever returns… he’ll ask.