Regulator

When I was a kid, living in my parents' house, there was a sound. When everything else was quiet, everyone had gone to bed, you could hear it. We lived at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac, so there was no traffic. Our dog was the soundest of sleepers, so there was no attendant pet sound to rouse us. Just the ticking of the clock at the top of the stairs.
It was an antique find, the kind my parents thrived on for a period when we were furnishing our mountain cabin. Towns like Nederland and Central City were hotbeds of old things given new life by families and collectors who wanted a piece of the old days to fill up their seventies decor. These were the antithesis of the plastic hand chairs and beaded curtains that currently exist in our world as antiques from another age. Things made of wood and metal are more real than those things 3D printed out of carbon fiber. I remember the player piano that came to rest in my parents' basement. That was an investment of time, space and energy that lasted for a good long time.
But not like that clock. It continues to count the hours, minutes and days of our lives. It moved with my mother to her new home, and it's keeping the beat for her and the house that surrounds it. It's the heartbeat of the place. Just like the way it used to when I listened at night. In all that quiet, there was that pulse, the ticking of the clock.
We have our own Regulator clock. It's the heartbeat of our house. Tick tock, for the duration of our lives. It's part of the weekly regimen to keep the thing wound. Recently, while keeping the springs taught, I may have over-exerted myself a bit. Something inside snapped. And the ticking stopped. Which meant we had a decision to make: Ask Google when we wanted to know the time, or get the old girl fixed.
Weeks went by, and the repairman labored over our clock, as he attended to others as well. When he let us know that ours was finally ready, we waited for him to deliver. Along with the bill. Which was considerable. Because they don't make them like they used to. Or fix them like they used to. But that was okay, because we needed it. It was part of our home. The heartbeat. Now I can get some sleep.