by Abi Hellam
At first I was sad to find that the clockwork mechanism had seized with old age. If you turned the key at the back, it would activate the tiny brass pins inside like an old jewellery box. I remember sitting with it for hours and hours as a child, playing it over and over.
But the melody was since lost to memory and although the key would turn, nothing sounded. I decided to put it on the table by our bay window. I carried on with my afternoon.
Later in the day, when the sun had shifted west and become low enough to skim over the terraces opposite, the sunlight filled the front room of the house and I heard a distant faint tinkle of bright and nostalgic bell-like chimes. It was Peter, beginning to slowly turn in the afternoon glow.
As he absorbed the June warmth, he picked up speed and enough notes began to string themselves together to form a recognisable tune.
I hadn’t heard Autumn Leaves since I’d had the chance to sing it with a live swing band almost ten years ago, and it wasn’t until this afternoon that I made sense of my connection to its simple rhythm, and why that melody had always felt like it was soaked into my subconscious.
I was quite moved, especially after accepting just a few hours earlier that I might never remember the song that my little clockwork rabbit used to sing. If I had decided to put him back in the box with the other remnants of my childhood and hidden him away in the attic, the sun wouldn’t have had chance to ease his tiny mechanical voice back to life.
I think there’s a lesson here about the importance of memories, and how easily music can bring even the most distant ghosts of our past back to life.
(Copyright Abi Hellam, 2026)
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