With the Passing of Time

I had an old clock in my house, once. It was in my parents room, where it sat on a shelf beside their bed. It always felt like a strange place to put a clock. Especially one that was supposed to go over the fireplace mantel.
When it worked, it was loud. Its ticking was incessant and obnoxious. But it looked nice, at least. It was square and made of oak. It had elegant pillars carved beside the clock face, and rested on rusted brass feet. It was an old wind-up one with a cream colored face and black Roman numerals.
When it stopped, the house was almost too quiet. I would sneak into my parents room to look at it. The old clock would sit there, broken but dignified. As I grew up, I forgot about the incessant ticking and the elegance it used to have. Whenever I saw it, all I saw was an old clock that my parents had yet to throw out.
They never got rid of that clock. It sat in their bedroom shelf for years. Every time I visited them, I went into their room, and there it was still sitting on the bedroom shelf. However, one year I went into their room, and I saw the clock, only the oak seemed to be not as bright as it once was. The hands looked like they were withering. The clock was dying.
Years later, I ended up burning that clock, but before I burned it, it was in a sorry state. The lustrous wood was rotting. The glass was cracked and it was missing one of its hands. Many of the Roman numerals had fallen off or had faded. It was asking me to burn it. To put it out of its misery.
The clock is nothing but ash now. Nothing but black soot. I promised to myself some years before I burned it, that I would not be like that clock. I would not be left on a shelf to die, to wither, to be forgotten, and eventually to be burned.