Out of Time

 

The clock has worked for years, always
keeping accurate time, and showing
when it was time for dinner or
when it was past our bedtime.

Two days ago it ran out of tics.
We were hungry but didn't know why.
Then we found ourselves stumbling around
in the dark.  We were confused.  This had
never happened before. What was going on?
We were tired and hungry and...
finally we noticed our time had run out.
Neither of us had a hidden stash of tics
anywhere.  Maybe it was time
for a new clock.
We took this one off the wall and stuck it
by the door.  We'd dispose of it in the morning.

Apparently the threat of being tossed out
was enough to scare it back to life.
The next morning it once again had the 
correct time.
We had breakfast, then hung it back up.

Just to make sure we don't go through this again,
we're going to order a case of tics from Amazon.
The case holds 525,600 tics.
That is enough for one year.