The Clockmaker (& The Unexpected Guest)

Mr. Givins hunches over an open-faced clock as a surgeon, tinkering at the gears with minute attention the the finest detail. One slip-up would cost him hours fixing a catastrophic mess, all due thanks to a hair of a fraction’s worth of being off-balanced. Sweat trickles down the side of his wrinkly face, as he licks his tongue, squinting an eye to sharpen his vision. One final twist of the precision screwdriver will spark life into the clock.

Ding-Dong! “Dingdongdingdongdingdong! Ding…… DOOOOONGGGG!!!!!

The screw strips from the pressure, as the head of the screwdriver scrapes and cuts across the other mechanism. “Daggum It!!!” The irate curmudgeon storms across the room like a heated locomotive charging to reach its destination. Clocks by the dozens tick-tock in synchronicity, an arduous task that took him months to perfect.

Givins swipes up a broom and draws open the door. Broom raised overhead, he growled, “What did I say about you menacing hoodlums harassing me!”

A man of Asian descent, wearing a fedora and trenchcoat and carrying a briefcase, inquires, “Are you a Mr. Benjamin Givins?”

Givins crinkled his bulbous nose, examining the stranger. “Are you one of those feds?”

“Feds, sir?” The stranger asked in disappointment over the confusion.

“Turncoats. Government’s been after my property for years. I’m amazed they haven’t sent the entire goddamn army to raze the very ground I stand.”

“I assure the nature of my presence has nothing to do with the government, or the conspiracies concocted therein.”


The elder gives the stranger a studious looking-over. “ What’s your name?”

“Chen Suen.”

“Chang-Zang?!” Givins laughs at himself. “What kinda name is that? I’d slap my mama in her face if she ever gave me such a name.”

“I’d have you know that Chen Suen goes well back to the earlier dynasties as a name meaning valor, prosperity, and wealth.”

“And look how far it’s got you!” Givins laughs raucously. “I should be overtaken by your very presence, feel worthy that you are acknowledging me, and give you a million bows while dropping rose-petals in your walking path. But I ain’t, cuz this is America, not some commy halfhouse out in the ricefields.”

“My business here is blatantly of no value. I shall leave and let you rot to your own grave where no spirit would weep and no sun shine upon. Good day.”

“Now you wait there, boy!” Chen looks back at him in silence. “You made me break a clock dated back to the late 18th century with all that racket you made. I only hope there was a good reason for that.”


“Why sir, there is. However, you are a deficient being who likes to curse others with your agonizing presence, and I have my spirit to look after. It should not be tainted with bigoted people such as yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“I’ll behave myself.”

“Are you so certain?” Givins could not give an honest answer. “If you would invite me inside.”

“Be my guest.”

Chen seemed breathless by the amount of clocks in all shapes and sizes, surrounding him, all faces on him. “You have quite the collection of clocks, Mr. Givins.”

“What can I say?” Givins blushed in self-arrogance. “It’s my life’s work. For thirty years, I‘ve collected clocks from time periods going back centuries, from dozens of places around the world. It all started with the first clock I got.” Givins pulled out a golden watch by chain and hung it before Chen. “My late wife gave it to me when we hit rock-bottom. It was an inspirational rinkydink reminder trinket. You know, that time is limited and that you better do something with your life because opportunities come and go with every ticking minute…” He chuckles. “She never expect I’d become a hoarder of clocks on the edge of filing bankruptcy. Seems my business launched a shy twenty years too late.”

“You miss your wife, I surmise.”

“I missed a chance to wring her neck for walking out on me and running away with that vacuum cleaner salesman. Nothing marks the lowest denominator of society like a chump who sells vacuums.”

“How did she perish, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“In a raging inferno.” Givins snaps.

“My heart goes out to her.”

“Just keep your heart right where it is.” Givins sinks into a chair. “She doesn’t deserve a single tear shed.”

“You do not mean that…” Chen saw Givins remain unmoved.

“What do you have to show me? Sooner you present it, sooner I can throw you to the curb.”

“If you insist.” Chen sets the briefcase onto the surface of the tabletop. “Words flow with the winds afar that you are a collector of clocks.” Givins looks at him with a no-shit expression. Chen wisens up. “It just so happens that I have in my possession a particular clock, an artifact if you may, that has dates 300 A.D.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Oh, it is indeed quite possible.” In two clicks, the briefcase springs open. Chen pulls out an ivory clock. Two dragons painted red and gold meet together with open jaws to form a heart-shaped formation. The hands of a clock tick away in the hollow where their jaws meet. “The clock has survived the natural course of time. First given to Eighth Emperor Zhen Djahn, the clock has been passed on from generation-to-generation until it was stolen from their fortress in 1608. Where it has been and what has become of it has been a mystery. It was found once again in 1928 in the outskirts of a ruined town, Myun Xinn, thirteen-hundred miles from where the clock last rest. Legend has it that since its creation, the hands have never stopped ticking.”

“Nonsense.”

Chen smiled. “Inspect.”

Givins reluctantly reached for the clock and searched every which way for key of some sort, but to no avail. “How does this run? And don’t tell me they had batteries in China in the third century.”


“Magic.”

“I shoulda known...A swindler.”

“I am nothing of the sort.”

“How much do you want?”

“There is not enough riches in all the world.”

“Then why waste my time? Why this charade?”

“I guarantee this is no charade. I come to a human in complete distress, a man who has nothing left for which to live.”

“Well you can take the clock and shove it. I’m not a charity case!”

“I never meant to allude to that, and if I may have inadvertently did so, my humblest apologies. But this clock is very dear to me. It’s very special.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“It has the ability to alter time in such a way, that it could transport you to any moment in time.”

“You have the galls to try to convince me you are carrying there with you a portable time machine?”

“It’s not like that. Here. Let me demonstrate.” Chen regarded him, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“By all means. I’d love to see what hackneyed exposition you are trying to enact before my very eyes.”

Chen said, “Look toward the dragon’s eyes and they will transport you to the most important moment of your life. The one crossroad where, if you would have taken the other path, things would have changed tremendously.”

“Ridiculous.” He looked toward the eyes of both dragons, which instantaneously glowed red. A fiery burst of energy scorched through him.

***

The crackled sounds of a ferocious wall of flame surrounded Givins. He could barely see a thing outside of a heavy cloud of dark smoke, through which faint light glowed. “Where the hell am I?”

A charred hand clenches his wrist, pressing into his skin like a hot poker. Steam let up his arm as he saw his skin melt in a soupy, bubbly liquid. He hollered from pain.

“Ben…” Givins looks up to see an eyeless woman, the cheek on half her charred face peeled off to reveal blackened bone and teeth. Wisps of her hair floated along with the hot air. “I missed you.”

“Susan?” Ben asked, choking. He then realized where he was, locked in a flaming car.

“I know you did it, Ben. You rigged the car to explode. It’s alright though.” Ben tried his hardest to scoot back. A body of flames ran up his arm, searing his flesh in a band of fire. Susan slowly prowled toward him as a cougar in the hunt. “I still love you. Come on, fuck me the way you used to.” Ben wailed as Susan, fully engulfed in flame, embraced him in a sensual odyssey of self-destruction amidst a roaring mass of fire.

***

Chen Suen held up the clock and smiled with a morbid sense of satisfaction. “Come on, my beauty. Our job is never finished. Another soul beckons us.” He tucks the artifact gently into the briefcase as if it was his own baby, locked it away, and departed the shop, whistling an ancient melody taught to him centuries ago.