Why Do Clocks Mysteriously Stop When People Die?

Timepieces in fiction do amazing things. Some cease to function at the exact moment when their owner’s life expires, giving the reader the first clue to the crime of murder.

Yesteryear’s thrillers took giant leaps. The stopped watch (or clock) scenario was one large jump. And it wasn’t done just once. Many stories relied on this odd quirk of nature vs machine to progress a story. Clock failure and human death became existentially linked. We loved the idea so much that implausible coincidences were passed off as likely possibilities. No questions asked.

There are exceptions, of course. I know I’d accept a violently destroyed wristwatch scenario. Let’s say there was a shocking car crash. It smashed the watch’s glass, causing it to press both of the watch’s hands against the clock face. The watch stopped because an outside force was applied to it. Death wasn’t that force. Physics stepped in and played that role.

But we’re dragged back to craving something of that supernatural event, right? A little bit of magic thrown into a story activates our internal intrigue-appetite and makes us hungry for more. We know intrigue tastes good, and it smells absolutely wonderful when it’s cooking. So we’ll help ourselves to a large bowl of it when it’s done, but the real flavour comes from another place inside us — neuroplasticity. This is where the mind takes over from logic and tickles our taste buds with lie spices.

Neuroplasticity says our minds are bendable. It’s possible to know one thing but choose to believe in something else. The best way to explain neuroplasticity can be seen in the short video below.

Experiments like these prove our mind’s ability to lose control of truth and follow falsehoods. This means that nothing in our minds is fixed or guaranteed because of its rubbery interior.

Trainee pilots regularly deal with this kind of thing when flying through clouds. With no reference point outside their windows, their spatial awareness falters. They begin to second-guess themselves. Their brains lie to them about what’s really happening outside their aircraft. They’ll imagine their plane climbing, descending, or turning when it’s actually flying straight and level. No matter how much theoretical training they receive about the syndrome before stepping into the cockpit, some will ignore logic (their instruments) and bend their minds to believe in something that isn’t really happening. Perfectly functional aircraft flown by highly skilled pilots have plummeted from the skies for this. Some even crashed.

We’ll believe in many things for no particular reason but to believe in them. I’m specifically talking about the plot items authors deposit into their stories — like a pocketwatch that stops when its owner dies — so you and I accept that this is gospel, regardless of logic and personal experiences that suggest otherwise.

Times Change. As Do Our Beliefs.

Authors writing contemporary pieces today face new challenges. The audience isn’t so naive about how digital timepieces stop. Few readers would be willing to accept a digital device stopping, displaying a fixed set of digits at the time of its owner’s untimely death. It’s the equivalent scenario, but the story just doesn’t seem to work as well. It’s implausible.

Well, it’s time for me to go. My neuroplastic mind is required elsewhere (Haha!). I’m gonna write some more bending content for my next novel. In the meantime, here’s my last bent novel (below) for you to enjoy.

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)