The Last Horologist by Arthur Davis

I am a horologist.

Secreting myself in this mid-American city of lost souls, I specialize in the art and science of timekeeping. I have been at my craft for more than a century.

The filth in the street, horses and their droppings that smear the city in a perpetual stink, damnable new cars and incessant street noise have become unbearable, as has the lack of civility and morality. Men in terrible pain limp along the streets only able to stand with crutches, leg braces, and wooden limbs. They are the fortunate ones who survived the war.

Newspapers this past July 1917 hailed a possible cure for blood cancer because of the connection between that disease and the use of deadly mustard gas. The public is desperate for hope. Any kind of hope. In a single day at the battle of Ypres, Belgium, 10,000 British soldiers were gassed to death wearing protective masks. Man at his worst.

There will never be a cure to that righteous pandemic because it is God’s will. A misunderstood example of his disappointment from what he has wrought. A disapproval of mankind as deep and fundamental as my own.

# # #

“Good morning.”

“And you are?”

“Daniel. Daniel Fitzpatrick?” the middle-aged man of slight build said, sounding like he doubted his own reality.

“Sit,” I say, motioning to the only chair in my small clutter of a shop. I am surrounded by my children. Hundreds that I have saved. Brought back to life from the dead.

“I’m on time, aren’t I?”

I continue probing the pocket watch I have been working on since I came down this morning from my rooms upstairs. This is who I am. This is where I live. This is where I turn skill into magic and magic into the impossible.

I set aside the fob and take a sip of cold tea. “It will take you an hour to get there and an hour to return. You will have twenty-two hours once you’re there. Do what you will with those hours. A second, a single second, past twenty-three hours and you will not be able to return.”

“I understand.”

“There are no exceptions.”

“You’ve made that clear too.”

I open my leger. “Am I correct that you have chosen Chicago in May of 1849?”

He nods. The date seems to unsettle him. A lost love? Retribution of some kind? A change so that he is not so desperate a man today, mere months after the war. The slaughter of millions, the so called, “war to end all wars.” Another reckless expression of man’s blind insight into human nature.

I never ask customers why they chose a certain day, month, year, or location. It’s not that it’s none of my business. I don’t care. But this Daniels fellow’s interest in 1849 piques my curiosity. It’s a year before the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed. A law that imposed steep fines on anyone assisting runaway slaves or interfered with their capture. Runaway slaves were also denied a jury trial. It’s not my recall that’s interesting. It’s the fact that I was alive when the law was passed.

“Yes. Chicago in 1849.”

“And the bank note? You have it with you?”

He is sweating. A gloss on his forehead. A tremble in his hands. He finds the last of his obligations. A princely sum, as I charge. I am a fickle old man that way. This time it was ten thousand dollars A princely sum by any standards. Sometimes it’s considerably less. It amuses me to terrify some with the amount.

This man does not wear the scars of war. His face is whole. His limbs complete. His features soft, weak to be sure.

“Have you told anyone else about our transaction?” I asked, as is my custom.

“No. I have no family and few I would consider friends.”

I believe him. There is something deeply unpleasant about this fellow. I’ve seen his type before. I don’t recall why I agreed to him over the many others. My own perversity. I point to the Bible sitting on the far left edge of my workbench.

Knowing my expectation, he puts his left hand on it.

“I swear.”

“Then it is done,” I say and pull open a small drawer in my desk. I take out a small pouch and lay it in front of me. The man, an arm’s length away, trembles breathlessly. Whatever his purpose, this will be the defining moment of his life.

I remove the nineteenth-century pocket watch and fob from the purple felt-like bag with a frayed, gold tasseled drawstring. I swipe a cleaning cloth over both sides of its worn clamshell casing. The bezel is dented, the crystal scratched, the crown hardly repairable. With the clinch of my thumb the clamshell bursts open. The man is transfixed. He doesn’t know it’s a cheap knockoff. He is a needy believer. To him, it’s everything.

“I’m turning back the clock to give you the time you requested.”

“Thank you.”

“This is very stressful for me. I can only do this every few months. The skill and time it takes to transform these timepieces is exhausting. That’s why I have to charge so much.”

“I understand. I can see what you do is important.”

Knowing I am a fraud, his compliment amuses me.

“Do you recall what else I cautioned you about?”

“Don’t drink water, wine, or alcohol of any kind. Anything liquid. And don’t eat until I come back and reappear in the chair I’m sitting in.”

“Another thing I have recently learned that may be helpful. Whatever you do with your time, do not get caught in the rain. Don’t get wet. Keep yourself dry at any costs.”

Fitzpatrick nodded.

When I first started on this journey I spent a lot of time answering questions and allaying fears. Once I filled their heads with lengthy, gratuitous instructions, they were immediately calmed.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick, please examine the watch carefully. If you have any questions on how to read the dials, or the fact that the watch will only run for twenty-four hours?”

“You explained it perfectly when I came in a month ago. I remember your every word. And thank you for this gift. I can’t tell you what or why I need to get back to 1849, but believe me when I say I don’t consider this a trivial adventure.”

“Yes, of course. Are you ready?”

He crossed himself twice. “Please, let’s get on with this before I change my mind.”

The needy and the greedy come from many parts of the country. A handful of Europeans have made the trek. That doesn’t mean I avail themselves of my gift. It is almost time to leave this city. There has been too much business since the war ended. People coming into my shop wanting to know if I am the one who can help them “in a certain way.”

The few watch repair shops in the city have branded me a fake. And worse. I am already drawing too much attention. All too often strangers pause on the sidewalk. They peer into my shop. Every few years I move to another city in another state where I am unknown and my birthright isn’t questioned. Even though I change my name and the name of my shop, the most desperate, the most needy and greedy, find me.

“I’m not sure what you want, now go away,” is my usual response and return to my task as they stand in the doorway, their hearts crushed as though they have come so far and now lost all hope and purpose. For every gift I agree to, most are rejected.

For every dozen men that plead for help, a single woman enters, many awash in tears. Women ask too many questions. Express too much doubt. I spend an ungodly amount of time with them. Men are simple and direct..

I can’t reveal how I am able to create such time machines from the scrap that crosses my workbench every day. People come in for repairs, to sell a family heirloom. But it’s from the most common of artifacts that I have been able to eluate its internal heart so that a stranger can live out their dream. To do something to correct a wrong or to perhaps grasp the economy of yesteryears so as to return to the present with information that will make them fabulously wealthy in their future.

I confess I am not quite the genius I appear to be. The Englishman Thomas Mudge invented the detached lever escapement in 1754, which when reconfigured, is at the heart of my discovery. His notes and drawings were worth the sum I paid to have them stolen. He is the true genius behind my success. This is a secret I will take to my grave, if that day ever comes.

“Take your watch with both hands, hold it close to your heart and firmly push down the small gold crown on the top.”

He closes his eyes, does as instructed and is gone. There is a change in the scent and temperature in my shop. It’s preceded by what I can only describe as a “crackle.” I have not yet grasped the physics or chemistry of these aftereffects.

I quickly return to my other chores as a smile flushes my cheeks, remembering my favorite joke, “What’s the difference between a horologist and a whore? One’s academically inclined, and one’s horizontally reclined.”

Unfortunately, as I already alluded to, I am a bit of a fraud. No matter how I’ve tried, I have yet to master the mechanics of how to program a common pocket watch with the ability to return a subject to the present.

Hopefully, that will come, but not in time to save Daniel Fitzpatrick, who may, with a single act of violence or unintended interaction, change history itself.

Arthur Davis

Image: Ancient, red wooden door surrounded by the internal cogs of watches and clocks.