Most of the time I don’t think about silly details of my life, more like, I do not have the leisure, the privilege to do so. Even while I am writing this piece, at the back of my mind the predominant thoughts are of my untouched assignment due tomorrow, two exams I am unprepared for and one paper presentation which reads as ‘die’ in an alien language. But today afternoon when it was decided that a trivial but constant detail in my life would be thrown away. I stopped, stared, and realised that the parting felt more painful than the deaths of my relatives.

My alarm clock (the object to be thrown away) is a silver metalled circular object with a weight of a sack of rice. It is small, fat and burly not to mention that under the guise of an alarm it makes a ridiculously disturbing sound jolting us from our sleep with a racing heart.  The silvery surface has copper brown speckles of rust on it. As far as I remember those rust were always a part of my arch enemy- the alarm clock but now that I think of it I was not born with acne marks, bruises and scars. Once upon a time even I had unmarked skin, soft as silk so did the alarm clock but my memory didn’t allow me to take the journey, the journey of peeking into the past of the silver thing.

Mother says this alarm clock was bought for me when I first entered school. Several firsts happened when I entered school. For example, the special scissor with the upward curving, slim blades, which could only be found in one shop in the whole county, were bought to cut my nails because father staunchly believed my nails are too delicate for a harsh nail cutter. As ridiculous as it may sound now, the scissors are still there in my drawer, as a memento from past but the alarm clock has no such privilege. None of us shared any special memory per se with it; it was only screechy nightmares, incomplete dreams and unfulfilled sleep that it reminded us.

Father brought it back from the mechanic this afternoon and announced that the clock was too outdated and none of the required parts were available in the market. Mother just sighed and looked at longingly while I had a major flashback moment. All my memories felt like a stack of Polaroid photographs. There was the time when I had knocked it over; I had fiddled with the key behind it and broken it; I had tried to press the nub at its head, which trembled when the alarm rang, and failed, repeatedly. It had seen me grown up and in the most obscure manner had helped me grow up.

Unlike my relatives, it did not live miles away from me maybe that’s why I had regarded it as just another object in my room. The proximity had rendered it useless.

 It did not create a hue and cry like my relatives when it saw me; it just remained quiet at the corner of my desk crying out as and when I wanted it to. Its compliance to my orders had rendered it useless

It did not demand attention like the yellow, lacy frock- the first piece of expensive garment I had ever worn nor like the rotting certificates of accomplishments from kindergarten till date. Its simplicity had rendered it useless.

A ritual funeral had been carried out for my relatives while my dear objects were wrapped in crisp, translucent paper and packed in boxes, as if it were a time capsule while all my alarm clock received was a wistful sigh and a nod of inevitability. Its dumb mouth had rendered it useless.

It should have shouted today afternoon, made that alarm ring like a screech of a mad woman throughout the room. It should have shouted that it was not useless, that it was literally, the holder of time and memories, that it deserved more than just a sigh.  It should have demanded a proper burial . . .

I lie. For even it had shouted we would have stifled its alarm just like the several early mornings.

Certain objects are born with the privilege to die, the rest just disappear in the sand of time.