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Just My Thoughts | |||||
In the early part of 2003, my 15 year old son uttered a sound of exasperation while walking through the kitchen. Normally, I wouldn't have paid it much attention as he tended to be quite moody most of the time due to his age, but this sound was different from what I was accustomed to hearing. I asked him what was wrong. He pointed at the digital clock on the stove which read 3:33. Shrugging my shoulders, I waited for him to explain what the big deal was. Apparently, for about six months, every time he passed a digital clock, it would read 1:11, 2:22; 3:33, etc. It had gotten to the point where it was truly bothering him though I really found it quite harmless. Without much sympathy, I told him that if it bothered him that much, not to look at a digital clock. This was kind of difficult, however, as the stove and microwave were both digital and he refused to wear a watch. The only clock in the house that wasn't digital was in my office. For the next several months, I would hear him make that sound of frustration and knew immediately what it meant. The digital clock had gotten him again. I have no knowledge of when it stopped for him, but I began noticing that when I would take a break from my computer to go into the kitchen to refresh my coffee, the digital clock on the stove would read 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, etc. I didn't think much of it until I began seeing these numbers two and three times a day. Suddenly, I understood my son's frustration, but it also piqued my curiosity. Sometime shortly after this, my youngest daughter, then seven, called my attention to the digital clock on the stove. It read 2:22. I remembered that she had been with us the day that my son told me that he had a problem with the clock. Despite this, I asked her why she had pointed it out to me and she stated that it had been happening to her a lot. She didn't only see the numbers that my son and I were seeing, but also 10:10, 11:11, 12:12, etc. That did it! I was hooked! |
At my first opportunity, I asked my son if he was still seeing anything on the clock. He said no. I asked him when it had stopped and he thought that it had been a few months earlier. After some calculations, I determined that it appeared that my daughter and I began seeing the numbers about the time that my son had stopped seeing them. I couldn't be completely certain of this, but I knew the timing was close. This could only mean one thing! However it worked, my son had passed it on to us which released him from what we had begun to term "the clock curse". But why? What was the purpose of seeing those numbers at all? I mentioned the situation to my mom, my other two daughters (ages 12 and 20) and a few other people in the hopes of coming up with similar stories. I didn't receive the information that I'd hoped for. They listened, thought it was odd, but hadn't had any kind of similar experience. I kept seeing the numbers each day and knew when my youngest saw them too as the sound she made nearly mirrored the sound of frustration that her brother had made. At some point over the next month or so, my youngest daughter stopped seeing them, though again, I couldn't say exactly when. I continued to see them just as often, however. Some days, depending on my mood, seeing those numbers would frustrate me, and other times, it would just drive me crazy wondering why I kept seeing them. I had been living with this mystery for about nine months or so when I finally discovered another person who had been experiencing the same numbers on the digital clock as I was. His name... the Night Watchman. We began dating in January of 2004. I thought that I might be able to pass the clock numbers on to him as my son had done inadvertently to me and my youngest daughter. All I had to do was have him look at the numbers when they came up. We discussed it first, however, only for me to find out that he'd been seeing the numbers for several years. Neither one of us could come up with a reason for it, but as the months rolled on, it continued to happen - even when we were together. I began working on gathering stories for more books and the first category was "Odd Stories." To get the idea across of what I needed for this category, I gave a brief description of my clock situation.
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The stories began coming in for all of the categories, but one of the stories hit close to home for me in the clock area. The story was entitled "315" and is within this magazine. Due to this story, I began to look at the clock numbers differently. They were no longer just numbers, but messages, though I still wasn't certain what they meant. A week or so later, I was awakened in the morning, before my alarm clock went off , by someone telling me to look at the calendar while keeping the clock numbers 1:11 in my head. I'm certain it was a dream, but nevertheless, it woke me. I got up, went to the calendar and turned the pages back to January. There it was staring me right in the face. I had written down when the Night Watchman and I had begun dating. It was January 11th or 1:11. Needless to say, I was excited by this find, but still unsure of its meaning. Not having anything to compare it to, I had only my own speculations. The Night Watchman and I both continued to see the numbers on the clock, both together and apart, regularly. I had another dream that I looked at the clock and it read 5:55. I panicked, actually sitting up in bed and shouting, "The Night Watchman is late for work!" I startled the Night Watchman who had been sleeping soundly beside me. He jerked upward to look at the clock which read only 10:30 p.m. I apologized and we went back to sleep. The next day I contemplated the dream, but could not come up with any reasonable explanation for it. The numbers 4:44 and 5:55 became constant images on a daily basis. My life was changing as I decided, due to finances, to give up my home to my ex and find a home to rent. It was difficult finding one large enough for three kids and myself, but harder to find one that would let me keep my Schnauzer. Finally, I had a nice house rented and it was time to move the furniture. My son and I had moved all the boxes throughout the previous week, so the furniture moving only took two loads on a trailer. We were done much faster than I expected with only five of us to move it all. Once finished, the Night Watchman and I went up town for a drink. As we sat at the bar, the Night Watchman wrote out a check. "It's 4:44," he said as he looked at me.
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