Those long gasps were like the slow ticks of a clock, coming in endless procession, until their very monotony made them seem a certainty.

She lay, half conscious, hearing the slow tick of her bedroom clock, without realizing where she was or what had happened.

There were only forest sounds and the slow tick of hot metal from the crashed BSA.

Its slow tick filled the immense space.

As a little girl LuAnn had listened to the slow, methodical ticks of that clock far into the night.

It sounded peaceful, like the slow tick of a clock.

It was quiet except for the shrunken river's ice-muffled purling and the slow tick of the cooling snowmobile.

A grandfather clock, very old, in the back corner, with a painted face and a deep, slow tick.

I could hear the slow tick of the old clock.

Measured by the slow tick of meat-person clocks, what happened next must have seemed to happen very fast.