Confessions of a Horological Idealist
Doc, the watchmaker, tinkered with a stopped clock. He had it latched open like a locket. Inside, microscopic Spacely Sprockets locked together like alternating iambs in a Shakespearean sonnet.
Some component was stuck. Gears jammed, just his luck. The sieving sands of time were fucked, and he was forced to sweep them up.
You see, a little lady in a bonnet begged him to work on it. She was old with a chronic disease called poverty. He knew helping her was what his wife would have wanted, so he begrudgingly agreed to do it for free. Yippee.
But, doggonit, she was annoying. She kept stealing stuff while he was toying with the coiled springs and lock key mechanisms preventing her clock from ticking. She took little things that didn’t matter, like a box of Kleenex or too many packets of tea, but he was trying to fix her mess for free and she was just adding stress to an already complex process.
“Lady!” he screamed. “Horology is an artistry more delicate than dentistry. I need to focus if you want this fixed. Please, just give me sixty seconds of silence so I can figure what the issue is.”
The old woman hmphed and hobbled out of the shop with her hunchback wobbling like a toppling top. In under a minute, he replaced some springs and recranked the clock, which started ticking.
Finally, he triumphantly brought it to the waiting woman outside, who took it and turned without thanks or goodbye.
