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The reason I checked this thread is because "backwards clock" means something to me but not what Raeanna74 meant. I used to live in the suburbs of Detroit before moving to West Michigan 10 yrs. ago. My Great Aunt who is Scizophrenic (sp?) spent 20 years in a mental institution in Northville MI. before it was closed (not exactly sure what year it closed). Jump forward 20 yrs. (from when she left) and my family moved to Canton MI, which is only about 5 minutes from the facility my Aunt was in.
By this time the facility had been abandoned for 20 yrs. and was something of a "haunted" area to the local teen population. Trust me, "area" is apt, there are multiple buildings strung over quite alot of acres in this complex. All the buildings are connected by a network of "tunnels" underground that contain the utility lines for the complex. Therefore the popular name for the site is the "Northville Tunnels". There are many scary/freaky things I could say about this place, but what I wanted to has to do with the thread topic.
When I was a teen-ager, I happened to end up at the tunnels with a few friends. We had flashlights and proceeded to inspect the buildings on the grounds (which affected me because I actually had a relative that had lived in those conditions). Can you say "Blaire Witch"! It was scary and freaky as. Skip over the rest of the spooky trip.
As we were making our way back to the car past yet another building (the last it would turn out), we noticed something unusual. The building was a long rectangle with a doorway directly in the middle. We went inside the doorway (or vestibule) and there was a ladder tacked to the wall that went up to a, say, 3' x 3' opening about 10-12 ft. up.. From there you looked down into the main body of the building (the rectangle) that had no visable means of escape. In other words, one way in and no way out. We had no concept of what this building was used for. As we were leaving it and on our way back to our car, someone called for the rest to look. We did, and above the "doorway" in the middle of the building was a clock (external like Big Ben). Not a normal clock though, this one only had nine hours and was in reverse (as in 1 o'clock was 11 o'clock).
Was this some kind of torture device (mental) used on the patients? I have no clue and yet, 18 yrs. later it still bothers me because it was so odd and backwards and unrational. This was a mental facility that was (supposedly) meant to heal people or at least maintain them and yet that one building (among others I won't go into) suggested some very disturbing things were happening besides help.
I know I deviated from the original post but I couldn't help but post my "backwards clock" story.
Ali
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'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun, The frumious Bandersnatch!'--Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll
"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
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