The Last Time-Keeper

Have you ever had those moments when it is later than you think? When it feels like a Tuesday? When time stands still?

I haven't.

Our gleaming, gilded little city, with the signal spire pinning up the sky, is only on the map because once--exactly once--in every generation, one of us is born with a perfect sense of time.

When I was growing up, Rennet Maquis was the time-keeper. It was his predestined honor to reside in the spire, adjusting each of its four faces to represent the exact hour and minute. All across the country, telescopic lenses stayed fixed on that lofty peak, reporting the time over ever-expanding distances as glass and mirrors fought the curvature of the earth. My father used to say there was a lot of money for the man who could build a better telescope.

In my memories, my father was always talking about money. Not because he fixated on it, but because the lack of it put constant pressure on how he spent his time.

Because so many relied on the time, there was a history of arrogant monarchs and monopolists trying to keep that knowledge for a privileged few. If a factory owner paid by the hour, manipulating the value of that hour could increase profit at the workers' expense. If the working class could not keep track of time, they could not make it, save it, or spend it as they pleased. But a time-keeper could come from any class, race or gender, and our city was incentivized to elevate the position above petty politics. The role of time-keeper was meant to be as revered as it was incorruptible. Everyone had a right to the time.

With these bright-eyed ideals, I presented myself to the spire on my twelfth birthday. I thought the exact hour and minute of my birth would be appropriate, and something the time-keeper would appreciate. My family went with me, my father proud, my mother wringing her hands, as I marched my little legs up to the spire and introduced myself as the next time-keeper.

And Rennet Maquis just said, "No."

The worst thing in that moment was the flicker of doubt across my father's face. Maybe his daughter was wrong. The time-keeper had commanded the respect and confidence of the city's spire for years now, longer than I had been alive. But I knew I was right, just the same as I knew how to breathe. "I am," I insisted. "I'm the next time-keeper."

And Rennet Maquis said, "Prove it."

I told him the exact time. And he told me I was wrong.

He lied.

It was his word against mine, and he lied. The word of the most influential man in the country against the word of a twelve-year-old brown girl who couldn't afford a second pair of shoes. And he lied.

Looking through the history of our city, I could find no record of this ever happening before. Another researcher might have thought it possible that another time-keeper had lied, and simply not recorded it. Being a time-keeper myself, though, it was easier to believe the record was correct. Rennet Maquis did keep accurate time.

For a while.

The way it always worked, the elder time-keeper willingly stepped down as their replacement came to prominence. For some years, there would be two people in the city who knew what the right time was. Then, as the elder time-keeper aged, they would start to miss minutes. Instead of the steady tick of each new second, there would be gaps, lapses in the internal clock, until their sense of time became as flawed and subjective as anyone else's. Maybe Rennet Maquis thought if he refused to step down, he could avoid this.

He was wrong.

I saw, once or twice in my teenage years, the high spire running ahead or falling behind. Not by much; a minute here, five minutes overnight. The more the count fell off, the harder it was to correct it, and by the time I was twenty-five years, five months, two hours and twenty-six minutes old, the clock that ran the world was always wrong.

There was no way for me to prove it. Following my humiliation, no one in my family believed I knew what time it was. If I showed up to an appointment exactly on time, but the spire said I was late, I couldn't convince anyone to abandon their resentment. If I told my mother it was time to take the bread out of the oven, she'd rather count on the spire and let the loaf burn.

I went to work at the same factory where my father was on the belt. I knew, I knew that the paid hours were wrong. Because the accountant recorded the time for payroll at the end of the week, the inaccuracies of the spire over the course of that week were reflected in our wages. And when the overseer counted each smoke break, each bathroom break, those missing minutes added up fast.

I wrote a long, careful letter to Rennet Maquis, outlining how his refusal to accept my help was affecting everyone around him. For many people, time is the only marketable resource they have. If I could just correct the spire, even in secret if he wanted the credit, it would just be a matter of minutes to get back on track. Seventeen minutes, in fact.

Instead, I received my first court order to cease and desist.

The factory accountant was a different sort of man. Valuing accuracy as much as I did, he was willing to work with me on an objective means of measuring time. He didn't necessarily believe I was the next time-keeper, but he did doubt the spire enough to see the value of an alternative.

Inspired by the factory's water wheel, the accountant and I built a system that would advance a dial at regular intervals over the course of eight hours. A factory worker could pour a pint of water into the device, and gravity would pull the water through a specific siphon, with a rod advancing the wheel. The eight hours would be over when the dial made a complete turn. It wasn't perfect; there were variables in pressure, temperature, and humidity that would add or subtract up to ninety-two seconds. But it was far more reliable than the spire was, and it made both the overseer and the floor workers feel a little more in control.

I sent a prototype to Rennet Maquis. In case it helped.

Although the water clock was a great first step, both the accountant and I wanted to develop a clock with a closed system. The fewer environmental factors and opportunities for sabotage, the more accurate that measure could be. The overseer took an interest in our designs, and created our own department, giving us a small team of craftsmen to refine the intricate moving parts.

It had been a long time since someone believed in me.

The pendulum clock, with its anchor escapement and arcing weight, was able to measure time constantly, and almost consistently, every hour of the day. Instead of every employee filling their own water clock, they could simply record their time from the grandfather clock. A mechanism would punch a code into a card with the clock's current time, and the accountancy team could use these punches to calculate a perfect wage. The overseer started selling these early models to other business owners.

The accountant and I both received cease and desist orders for defaming the spire, but the rumors continued to spread. Rumors that our pendulum clock was more reliable and accurate than the time-keeper was.

Although we worked well together, the accountant and I wanted different things. He wanted to focus on making a portable clock, with spring systems that would make them practical even at sea. I wanted to make clocks more accessible as a household staple rather than a novelty for the elite. He said he would help me develop an affordable clock if I would agree to marry him. I told him both improvements were equally important, and we should expand the division to work on them separately.

I loved him, too. But a time-keeper is traditionally unmarried. I still thought of myself that way. Thought I could still take my place in the spire if only Rennet Maquis would admit he was wrong.

I still thought of myself that way when I put my father in the ground. He held my hand as he lay dying, on a bed worth more than my childhood home. He told me he was proud of me. But I could not stop remembering his eyes when I was twelve and, for all he knew, a liar.

I counter-sued Rennet Maquis for defaming my clock.

The spire is empty now. A little part of me feels guilty. The overseer funded my side of the intense legal battle that made his clock factory famous while thoroughly discrediting his competition. With the spire dismantled, no one would invest in telescopes anymore, and timecard-based industry could be synchronized on a transcontinental scale. While I could easily--audaciously--prove that Rennet Maquis was just making up the time, I still couldn't convince anyone that I wasn't.

The accountant testified on my behalf because he loved me. And after my vicious onslaught against the spire's reputation, I don't know that he loves me anymore.

I spoke to Rennet Maquis one more time before he disappeared. It had been exactly two hours and twenty-three minutes since my last cigarette, so I needed my next 'last one' immediately. I stepped out a side door from the court house, and nearly ran into the old man, hunched beneath a hawthorn tree.

He snorted and said, "Well? You got what you wanted."

I parked the cigarette between my teeth and offered him the pack. After a long internal debate, he took a smoke for himself. I lit them both. "This was never what I wanted. You were supposed to be my fucking mentor. Not my fault you turned out to be a joke."

"I am still the time-keeper." His lip curled around a hiss of smoke. "Time is not a punchline."

"Have you ever been punched?" I asked. "I actually care about time. I know what it costs."

"I care about time!" Rennet Maquis fumed. "I couldn't let some shiny child take it away from me! It's all I have! Do you know how that feels?"

"Yeah," I told him. "I do."

We finished our cigarettes in silence. Sometimes, people can understand each other completely without being able to stand each other one little bit. As I crushed out my dog end and turned to go inside, Rennet Maquis said, "Wait."

I waited.

"What time is it?"

I wrenched open the door. "Time to get a clock."

No one even looks at the spire anymore. Everyone's time is just a little bit different, but everybody has a clock they can trust. My clocks are on every mantle, in every home, even the homes where I'm not welcome anymore. And the last time-keeper stands disgraced, exposed. Rejected. And alone.

So when you tell me, child, that you know the clock is wrong, I believe you. If you know you're right, just the same as you know how to breathe. But even I can't know it for sure.

I can't feel the ticking anymore.