The chaos clock, p.16
The Chaos Clock, page 16
“That’s right,” Tom said. “Just wanted to let you know that we’re not going in as players—the tournament’s been cancelled—but I have volunteered to help out with disaster relief. My dad’s a fireman, you know. A large part of the NYFD is going down to help. Maybe some of you can come with me.”
I felt the watch thumping in my pocket. I suddenly felt like I had to wind it really tightly, like it was working hard to hold back some cosmic force. Was this something I was supposed to do? What could I do? I was just one man, a kid really. I twisted the stem until the milling in the edges sanded skin off the end of my finger and thumb.
“I’ll come,” I said, although I had no idea how I could help.
“Oh, no, you won’t,” my mother said, when I phoned from the bursar’s office to ask her for permission. Tom’s dad said anyone under twenty-one had to get a waiver from parents or legal guardians.
“But, Mom!” I pleaded.
“No. Don’t you ask me again.” Her voice was as hard as rock. “I lost my parents. I lost your father. I am not going to lose you. You stay there where you’ll be safe.”
I felt as if I was letting the world down. I couldn’t change her mind when she sounded like that.
“All right, Mom. I won’t go.”
“You better not!” I heard her choke back a sob. “I don’t know what’s happening to the world. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and ended the call.
I wasn’t the only one who had to turn Tom down. Ginene’s parents told her no, too. So did Diego’s. We felt horrible we couldn’t help, but Tom didn’t blame us.
I could hardly wait until I was alone in my dormitory room. I needed to talk to the voices, to Gramps.
“What’s happening out there?” I asked, making sure that I kept my voice low. “Is this something that I am supposed to do?”
“No!” Gramps said, almost deafening me from the inside of my head, overpowering the protests of the others. “This is coming from far outside. Earth’s gotten in the way of a force it’s never experienced before. It’s trying to balance itself against the chaos. You’ve felt it, I know you have. All you can do is stay safe.”
“I’ll try,” I promised. I felt like a little kid facing a whole army of invaders, like in a story by Mr. H.G. Wells.
“Just essay what you find within your capabilities,” the upper-class man said. “No one could ask you to do more.”
That didn’t help me at all.
***
Just because she couldn’t aid in the relief effort for Charlotte with Tom didn’t mean Ginene was going to sit on her hands. With a group of her friends from church, she started a local drive for donations. With no games and classes suspended in sympathy for the people affected by the disaster, she roped the rest of us into helping her. I found myself driving Diego’s beat-up speedster back and forth across town to pick up blankets and food. We were supposed to drop them off at the fire station for transport to North Carolina.
“She’s a keeper, son,” Gramps always said. I completely agreed with him.
The watch insisted that I wind it more often than ever. The voices harangued me less than usual. That worried me even more than having them in my ears all the time.
I still hadn’t told Ginene about any of this. If it wasn’t going to hold back a planet-threatening disaster, I thought it was better that she not know anything. I hated keeping secrets from her. She was a lot more level-headed than I was, but what if she didn’t understand?
***
Less than a week later, another gash appeared in the earth, right in the middle of Switzerland, worse than any of the previous events. A nature photographer was lucky enough to have his tripod set up on the slope of an alp when the disaster began, and sent it worldwide by photo-telegraph. Whole mountains fell into the ravines, taking towns and cities with them. Thousands died. It would take months, if not years, to discover the names of all the dead.
People were finding it harder and harder to cope with each new disaster. I had the same sensation they did of being trapped with no way out, since nobody could tell when or if it would happen again. Classes at the college were cancelled. Concerts and sports events across the city were postponed indefinitely. I wished desperately for the distraction of those occupations to keep my mind from being haunted by the cloud that seemed to surround the Earth.
People in the city were torn between “It can’t happen here” and “It’s going to happen here.” I wish the latter group would have been wrong.
I was supposed to meet Ginene that afternoon to take her rowing on the Charles River. The weather was nice, and we just wanted to enjoy the sunshine. We needed to calm our minds and relax. Ginene had just about turned herself inside out to help with the relief effort. It was her way of coping. I did everything I could to help, but dread weighed me down. She was the only bright part of my world, a world that felt more and more fragile.
I waited for her near the boat launch. She was late, as usual. Instead of getting upset about it, I listened to the usual argument among the voices in my head. The elegant-sounding lady was going on and on about eternity, when I heard a shout from a distance.
“Hello, Nick!”
I looked up to see Ginene coming toward me through a crowd of children and parents. Dressed in a white flannel dress and jacket with a broad brimmed hat pinned on her hair, she had a long-strapped bag over her shoulder with the top of a wine bottle sticking out. I grinned. She was the most thoughtful, beautiful, intelligent, and compassionate woman on Earth, and I was proud that she let me be her boyfriend. Once I graduated and found a good-paying job, I would ask her to be my wife.
I waved. She waved.
Then, the watch stabbed me in the gut. Gears cut into my midsection, drawing blood right through my waistcoat. I felt a bolt of lightning stab through my body like nothing I had ever felt before. And the world fell apart before my eyes.
Just like it had in Charlotte, the ground split into a dark chasm. Screams erupted from the crowd. I started to run toward Ginene, but the stretch of land on the other side just dropped out of sight. She fell, flailing at the air. I dashed to the ravine and threw myself down with my arms out, trying to catch her. Tons and tons of dirt, rocks, and grass tumbled like a whirlpool made of earth. I saw hands and faces as they were dragged down into the rubble. For one horrible second, I saw Ginene’s face. Then, she disappeared. Hundreds of people had just died, but Ginene—! I couldn’t stop screaming.
“Turn it back!” Gramps shouted. “Stop bellowing, boy! Turn it back!”
The pocket watch!
I pulled away from the precipice and twisted the tiny knob backward. My hands were shaking, but the watch stopped me turning it too far. The broken land threw itself up again, shooting everyone back to where they had been just moments ago.
“Hey, Nick!” Ginene cried. It was happening all over again. I couldn’t save them all, but there was time to save one…
“Run!” I bellowed. “Hurry, run! Right now!”
Ginene must have seen the terror on my face. She didn’t hesitate. She came sprinting toward me. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to safety just as the ground disappeared under her feet. The crowds disappeared into the bloodstained soil and their cries died away. But she was safe. I lay on the ground with her on top of me, panting.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Another event,” I said.
She stood up and looked down into the hellscape at our feet. “Oh, my God. They’re all dead! That could have been me!”
“You’re alive,” I said, in between pants.
She stared at me. “How did you know to tell me to run?” she asked.
“I… I just knew.” But her face told me she knew I was lying.
“You’ve been spooky ever since all this started. Did you foresee it? Do you have second sight?”
“Not exactly,” I said. She wasn’t satisfied with that answer. I wouldn’t have been, either.
“Tell her,” Gramps said.
“Trust in her.” “No!” “Yes!” The voices were all over the place with their opinions.
“What else are we here for?” Gramps demanded.
For that, no one, including me, had an answer.
I tracked the second hand tracing its way around the face of the watch. I took both of Ginene’s hands in mine, and I explained the whole thing: the watch, the price, and the Universe.
Ginene kept her eyes on mine the whole time, never even looking at the timepiece. I felt the moments ticking away like they were stealing my life. Because I knew. I knew what she was going to say.
“You have to save them,” she said. When I started to protest, she placed her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want to hear it! Tom would do it. Diego would. Even I would! It won’t kill you. Yes, it’s easy for me to say, because I wouldn’t have to pay the price. But it’s all those lives! Look at that!” She pointed to the bloodstained earth below us. “All those people. Children! They are all innocent. It’ll cost you time, but it’s life long after death. Who gets a gift like that and doesn’t use it?” She cupped my hands around the watch.
At that moment, I knew it wasn’t just Ginene begging me to help. It was the Universe. I felt it through the watch. I heard it through the voices in my head. Whatever was attacking the Earth, I could avert it.
Around us, horse-drawn emergency vehicles gathered, and firefighters in rescue gear strung ropes from trees to let themselves down into the ruin. I felt the earth starting to move. It would swallow them up. I could protect them. I could do the right thing. I had to.
I twisted the watch stem.
Unlike all the other times I’d helped someone out, dialed back a little to rescue one or two people from an accident, I felt the presence of hundreds, even thousands of lives buried in the bloodstained dirt. I hoped my strength would be enough to pull them back to life.
The rescue teams ran backward. Ginene stared at them.
“Is this what you saw?” she asked. She swallowed. “Did I…? Was I…?”
I nodded, my teeth gritted together, unable to form words. Something fought me, something stronger than anything I had ever felt. Molten ice filled my veins, trying to stop me from turning the stem. The watch erupted with electrical shocks, digging its gears into my palm. We were becoming one, fighting the menace. This was the biggest battle of my life.
The rescue vehicles rolled away backward, the horses tossing their heads. The ground before me began to churn. People fell upward out of it. One at a time, then in handfuls and hundreds.
I dropped to my knees. Under my feet, the world vibrated like it would shake apart. I thought my bones would break. Ginene clung to me, encouraging me. The watch chain unbuckled itself. I had to grab for the gold case before it fell. Ginene gave me a nervous smile and refastened it as I kept turning, turning, turning time backward. The watch was secure in my hand, and I had control.
At last, the vibration stopped. The dark chasm had filled in. The buildings and trees were all back. The children ran among their parents, laughing. Ginene and I ran into their midst and persuaded them to run to the safe side of the park. Some of them resisted, refused to listen to us, a couple of Black students, but others responded to our desperate pleas.
When I felt the rumbling start again, we hadn’t saved them all. We retreated and watched the chasm open. When the maelstrom stopped, we tried again, and again, until we got everyone away from the crack in the earth before it opened. The crowd stood on the edge of the abyss, staring down into the darkness, hugging their children tightly, wide-eyed but safe.
The menace wasn’t gone, but it had been driven back. For now. The Universe would exact its cost later, but I was too tired to care.
I took a deep breath and sat on the ground. Ginene slumped beside me.
“Good boy,” Gramps said. “I knew you were the right choice.”
“I didn’t do it alone,” I said.
“The voices?” Ginene asked. I nodded. “Tell them… tell them to let me join you. For,” she grabbed my wrist and looked at the gold face and counting the minutes, “a hundred and four years. And however long it took you to save me. And any more time you’ll owe, I will owe it, too. It’s worth it.”
“What?” I asked, staring at her. “You don’t have to pay this price. It’s mine. I took on the responsibility.”
“You don’t have to do it alone. Does he?” she asked the watch.
Gramps clicked his tongue. “She’s a keeper, son.”
“A time-keeper,” I said. I took her hands and looked into those beautiful green eyes. They were watchful, like Gramps’s had been. I felt the massive weight of the Universe pitted against my puny strength and the power of the watch. It was such an unequal battle. “We won’t be able to save everyone.”
Ginene kissed me, and my heart filled with hope. “We can try.”
Reimagining the Mechanism:
An Exposition on the Nature of Time
Bernie Mojzes
In the face of the myriad epistemological difficulties surrounding any investigation of the so-called “Chaos Clock,” it might be tempting to consign its existence to the realm of myth. Fiction. Fantasy and fabrication. How, in fact, could one hope to detect the alleged influence of such an object, a device purported to possess effects so pernicious as to affect the very flow of time itself?
Should this lecture simply enumerate and describe that which is objectively known about the Chaos Clock, I fear I should have had to stop before I began. In contrast, the acts and attributes spuriously ascribed to this elusive object have grown at a rate so prolific that any attempt to inventory them would be rendered obsolete before the next speaker rises to stand at this podium.
No, we cannot address the question of the Chaos Clock directly. We must, instead, speak around the object of our interest, in hopes that we may catch a glimpse of it from the corner of our eye, so to speak, or of our mind.
The science of timekeeping has seen a great many advances since Christiaan Huygens introduced the pendulum as a measure to affix to time once and for all the nature of discrete, uniform units, and, in the process, profoundly reordering the entirety of Human existence. Under the dictates of Industry, Science, and Capital (or Kapital, as our dear friend Herr Marx would say), Time has been transformed from a qualitative element to a quantitative one: discrete, precise, uniform, measurable, exact, inexorable, and absolute—the concept of time as the medium through which we experience our lives has been supplanted with the concept of time as a unit of measurement. Where once we looked to the heavens to understand our position in the world and the tasks needed to survive within it, we now look to clocks: Mr. Harrison’s marine chronometer has enabled global shipping and transport on a vast scale, whilst the aforementioned Herr Marx correctly notes the decoupling of Time and History, and the wholesale subordination of society to the rigours of the factory floor time clock.
Needless to say, any processes that modify, modulate, lengthen, shorten, omit or insert, loop, or otherwise interfere with the natural flow of time would be undetectable from within the structure of Time Itself, which is to say, the Universe. Likewise, the very machines tasked with the meticulous keeping of time—yes, like your pocket watch, Mr. Danville, please put it away; this lecture is unlikely to be shortened by your incessant consultation of said device—these very machines are singularly incapable of detecting any variation in the flow of time.
Paradoxically, the objective view of the time clock is by its nature subject to the effects of the Chaos Clock and is thus subjective. Logically, then, it is only by resorting to purely subjective means that we might triangulate upon an objective view.
What do I mean by this? Surely, any child who has endured Sunday services can tell you:
Time is not linear.
The incoherent droning of the pastor is interminable.
Sunday
will never
end.
Of course, it eventually does, which demonstrates the power of the human imagination to create its own chronomatological gravity.
One must endeavor, in this case, to undertake a phenomenological investigation of l’artefact qui nous intéresse—the artifact of interest—to observe and analyze through subjective experience that which cannot be objectively scrutinized.
How, though? How does one experience something that is fundamentally unexperienceable?
Here is where I must beg your indulgence as I depart from the traditional format of the scientific lecture and expand upon my own unquantifiable experiences.
Rather than seek the Chaos Clock itself, I would experience the world from the perspective of that obscure object. What I needed to do was experience all times simultaneously. A hopeless task, you have surely already told yourself, even as the words left my lips, but not so: There are precisely two places upon this Earth where one might make a claim to all times, or to be outside time itself—at least in some limited sense.
The choice of north or south pole was no choice at all—after Captain James Cook’s sighting of an ancient city sleeping, perchance to dream, in the depths of the South Pacific, what choice could there be? For what is dream but to be free of the strictures of time? Can it be a coincidence that the ancient city of R’lyeh lies so close to one of the poles?
The challenge remained, of course, as to how to reach the South Pole itself, a feat no man had hitherto accomplished. Men no less accomplished than James Clark Ross and Dumont d’Urville had failed in their efforts, and an overland expedition will not succeed until 1911, some two decades hence. It is incontrovertible that the body you see before you is hardly a fit specimen to be chosen to accompany such arduous ventures, and the intervening twenty years would undoubtedly do little to improve my physique. Should I wish to conquer the southernmost frontier, I would need to find an alternate means of travel.
