The Clock Maker
The old man sat surrounded by clocks, he listened to the individual beat of each as their hands swirled around their faces. Each one was different. As different as any person. That was one of the reasons the man loved clocks.
He sat behind his work table, cradling an old mantle clock in one hand and tightly holding a tiny screw driver in the other.
His skin was dark and his hair grey. He wore wrinkles around his mouth and crows feet rested lightly beside his eyes.
He had been hunched over this particular clock for the better part of three days. He knew what the problem was; one of the gears had been knocked loose years ago, but he wanted to make sure that nothing else might end this clock’s life yet again.
He shifted in his stool happily.
The clock was made of white marble, decorated in gold, and it had deep black vines ingrained in the face that sat on the table.
He had removed the face so that he could further examine the inside of the little beating clock.
Most people would think he’s retired, given the fact that he’s never posted hours on the outside of his shop, just a sign declaring simply ‘If it’s unlocked, we’re open’, but he’s not retired, not really.
In fact the clock shop has been part of his family since 1904 when it opened its doors. It still occupied the same building down the same little side street in San Francisco. Most people weren’t even aware that the shop existed, and that was the way he liked it.
He glanced out the window and shifted in his seat again.
He clicked yet another gear out of the way and peered inside the broken clock. He exhaled though his nose, and adjusted his flip-flops on the metal bar that rested in the middle of his stool; they slid easily against the warm cotton of his blue and pink stripped socks.
The man glanced up when he heard the soft tinkling of bells that alerted him to a customer opening his door.
A portly man stood at the threshold, grinning. He carried a briefcase loosely in his hand and wore a hat pulled down tightly on his head.
The older gentleman smiled at him and knew that he was here to try and convince him to sell his store. Just like the last dozen times he had entered the little clock shop.
And just like the last time the heavy set man wore a suit that seemed ready to burst against his bulging stomach.
The Suit was gray and well pressed, but the only thing the owner of the shop even remotely liked about the man’s choice in clothing was the golden pocket watch that he carried close to his breast.
The pocket watch was always on time, but it seemed to tick in a slightly labored manner, like it was sluggish, but determined to keep going.
The heavy man sauntered over to the desk and leaned on it, the desk registered its annoyance with a slight creak.
“Jorrin,” the heavy man said, calling the clock maker by the only name Jorrin had given him “I’ve got a hell of an offer this time. My boss told me to give you TRIPLE what this place is worth!” the heavy man waved his arm with a flourish.
Jorrin shifted in his chair and gave the man a slightly blank stare.
“How can he triple priceless?” Jorrin asked finally.
“This place is in a shit neighborhood. It’s not priceless. It’s barely worth the land it’s built on,” the heavy man declared angrily “I mean, have you even SOLD a clock this week?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“See? There you go! Sell this dump and rent something in Beverly Hills! Those rich idiots will buy anything!” the man’s buttons strained against his coat.
“Have a good day, Marshall. Say hello to Ann, would you? And be sure to stop by the corner store and have them take a look at your tires,” Jorrin said as he turned his attention back to the clock he still held lovingly in his hands.
Jorrin didn’t look up as the bells tinkled once more, informing him that the large man had left, likely in a huff.
It didn’t bother Jorrin that he came in here every few days and tried to convince him to sell his store. It really didn’t.
Jorrin had been around long enough to know that things changed. That someday he would have to leave his shop. But he had no intention of allowing that time to come before he chose an heir and left for the next world.
Jorrin shifted in his seat again, he knew that he’d have to get back to his real job soon, but he didn’t feel like it.
Reluctantly the old man stood slowly, locked the door to his shop and disappeared into the backroom.
* * *
Nearly four weeks later Jorrin found time to return to his clocks.
He emerged from the backroom while the sun was still barely peeking over the horizon, the light played against the polished glass and metal on the clock faces.
He clicked the lock over and pushed open the door, he breathed the crisp air deeply and smiled, he liked his clocks. Nearly as much as he liked his socks. But that wasn’t really here or there at the moment.
He had briefly considered opening a sock shop, in fact, but clocks seemed much more elegant…and he had no idea how to make socks.
So he chose clocks.
He sighed happily as he sunk back to the stool and carefully picked up the same mantle clock he was fixing the last time, blew out the inside, and again peered into the inner sanctum.
He sifted in his chair yet again.
It was another two days until his next customer entered, the bells jingled happily as the elderly woman walked into the store. She wore a black circular hat on top of her gray hair and a long black and blue dress.
Jorrin looked up and smiled at her happily “Hello there. How may I help you today?”
As she looked around, gazing at the shelves full of clocks, Jorrin noted that she had an old scar above her right eye “I…I was just passing by and I think I came in here once when I was young.”
Jorrin stepped back from his work table and walked over to her “That’s entirely possible; this shop has been here for a fair amount of time. Over a hundred years by my count.”
“In fact, many of these clocks have been here for nearly that long,” he said as he picked up a small circular one and rolled it around in his hands, feeling the cool glass against his skin and the soft tick-tick-tick of its internal gears.
The woman nodded and glanced at him, her eyes narrowed “But I could have sworn you were the owner then as well.”
Jorrin gave her a smile that could hardly mask his mirth at this suggestion “Madam, I assure you, I lived on this earth only fifty seven years,” he placed the clock back on the shelf.
She watched him for a moment longer, he stood quite easily under her gaze. Finally she turned back to the shelves.
“I suppose,” she said with a smile.
Jorrin turned around and adjusted his tunic “Anyway, what can I help you with today?” he asked as he started back to his table.
The woman considered his selection for a moment, her eyes lingered on one spot briefly “My granddaughter’s sixteenth birthday is coming up, and I’d like something a little less…conventional. She’s been on an antique kick the last few years and I think that she’d appreciate a nice clock.”
Jorrin stood thoughtfully for a second then answered “Well, I suppose that a clock is about as unconventional as you can get.”
She smiled, more warmly this time “Yes, I think so. Something that will keep her from forgetting me when I’m gone.”
Jorrin nodded absently.
“Most people would ask if I was going someplace. Try to convince me that I’m not that old yet,” she said with a slightly dark grin.
“Yes, well, I try not to pry. Tell you what, come back tomorrow and I’ll have a special clock for your granddaughter. I’m nearly done with it; just a few finishing touches left.” Jorrin answered.
She looked at him for a few moments, then thanked him and headed for street. Jorrin followed her to the door and held it as she exited.
Jorrin waited for a few moments, still holding the door, when suddenly Marshall rounded the corner and stopped short at the site of Jorrin, who was wearing a slight smile on his face.
Marshall looked disheveled and was out of breath, there was a noticeable film of grease under his fingernails as he clutched his briefcase with unusual conviction.
“Hello Marshall, car trouble?” Jorrin said as he stepped aside to allow the heavy man to enter.
The man thanked Jorrin and shifted his bulging weight though the door “Flat tire,” he said airily.
Jorrin shut the door “Yes, I expected you nearly half an hour ago.”
Marshall gave Jorrin a sideways glance “I only found out your doors were even open forty minutes ago.”
“And it’s a ten minute drive from your office to here…hence the assumption…though I knew you didn’t listen to my warning about your car…” Jorrin said with a slight shrug.
Marshall lowered himself into one of the cushy chairs beside Jorrin’s desk unbidden “Ah yes, you’re a psychic,” he said as he rolled his eyes “I always forget that.”
“I’ve never claimed to be psychic, just observant. When you’ve been around the world like I have, you begin to notice things.”
The heavy man muttered something and settled into the chair further, the chair argued with this predicament, but Marshall ignored its pitiful plea.
“You’re not much older than I am Jorrin; so let’s not play that card, eh?”
“It’s not a matter of age, Marshall. It’s a matter of experience.” Jorrin responded as he walked past the heavy man resting in the chair.
Marshall snorted “You’re confrontational, you know that?”
“Only to those who are trying to run me out of my shop,” Jorrin responded as he adjusted a clock hanging across the room.
“If I was trying to run you out of the shop I’d have hired a few goons to rough you up. I’d really prefer that you gain some common sense and sell this damn place.”
Jorrin clicked his tongue.
“It’s not like you’ve even been open for the last month!” the man leaned forward and waved his hand as if to put an exclamation point on this last statement.
Jorrin clicked his tongue.
Marshall sighed and leaned back “Well, it’s true Jorrin. That’s not a way to run a business.”
“Ah, but it’s the way to run one’s hobby, isn’t it?”
“Then why the hell aren’t you interested in just moving somewhere else? This area’s a hole these days,” Marshall pointed out the window to the store across the way, whose door was boarded up and covered in graffiti “what happens if you get robbed? Or ATTACKED? What then?”
Jorrin laughed at this “I defend myself, Marshall, is that so hard to understand?”
“You’re nearly sixty!”
“And woe to the unlucky youngster who decides he can take me,” Jorrin turned to Marshall and gave him a slightly unsettling grin.
Almost as though the older man would welcome the excitement.
Marshall sighed, the buttons on his suit pushing the upper limits of good humor as they strained against the thin strings keeping them in place.
“I don’t suppose that the fact I’ve brought the offer in cash makes a difference to you?” Marshall patted his briefcase.
Jorrin cocked his head to the side “Did you now? And why did you do something like that?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve found that even the most stubborn owners can be swayed when they see the bills in the flesh,” Marshall said as he clicked open the case and showed Jorrin the contents.
Jorrin began to laugh.
“What? It’s all here. I promise you that,” Marshall said almost indignantly.
“No, it’s not that,” Jorrin tried to explain between bursts of laughter “I like you Marshall, that’s why I haven’t turned you away good and proper, but you’re the most bluntly persistent person I’ve ever met.”
“Please, you’ve turned me away ‘good and proper’ every time we’ve met.”
Jorrin stopped laughing and raised his eyebrows “have I? Do you really think you’re the first to approach me like this? And they darkened my door only once.”
Marshall smiled tightly and shut his briefcase “Are you insinuating that if I don’t stop bothering you I’ll have an ‘accident’?”
Jorrin chuckled again “No. But I am saying that I could turn you away in such a manner that you’d never be able to bring yourself to bother me again.”
“Ah, and how would you do that?” Marshall asked as he approached the door.
Jorrin held it open for him as he exited “Would you really like me to show you?” he asked the heavy man, face set in a stony gaze and voice hard as a fresh cut granite.
Marshall licked his lips as he looked at Jorrin. There was something about the older man’s expression that told him he shouldn’t push his luck today.
“No…no Jorrin, I’ll just come back next time you’re open,” he said with a hint of defeat in his voice.
He started back out into the street.
Jorrin nodded “Well, have a good day Marshall. I would take the long way back to your car, if I were you.”
Marshall turned around to ask Jorrin why, but the man had already shut the door behind him and was receding into the store.
Marshall took the long way to his car, just the same.
At closing time Jorrin shut off the lights and gave the store another glance before disappearing into the backroom for the night.
The moonlight flitted in through the window and cast a pale glow on his clocks.
Jorrin wondered how long it would take for Marshall to return with yet another offer. The man amused him in an odd way.
Jorrin smiled.
Maybe he just liked to watch a man fight against odds he can’t overcome, Jorrin decided.
It would be a nice day tomorrow.
* * *
And it was indeed a nice day when Jorrin happily emerged from the back of the shop and opened his door again.
The day was crisp as he sighed happily and closed the door.
He walked back to his table and the ornate clock.
It was almost ready and he knew that he would finish it just before the woman returned to his store looking for the perfect gift he had promised her.
By ten in the morning the bells jingled as the woman returned, she was holding a canvas bag full of baking supplies.
Jorrin had no doubt that she meant to bake the cake for her granddaughter.
She smiled at Jorrin “I was in here yesterday and you asked that I come back.”
Jorrin nodded and gestured to one of the chairs, she sat down.
“Just a moment, I’m almost finished,” he stood up finally and carried the clock over to her; he clicked the face shut and passed it into her hands carefully “I think that this is exactly what you’re looking for.”
She looked at it, her eyes grew slightly wide “This…this is the clock I looked at when I…” she touched the scar above her eye.
“It fell off the shelf a fair few years ago and clonked a young girl rather sternly. Her parents weren’t pleased that she had wandered away and found this store,” he said as he sat down beside her “She was fine, but had a nasty cut.”
The woman looked at him “That…that was years ago. I…how did you know it was me?”
Jorrin looked surprised “That was you? Really? I had no idea. I had just been fixing that clock and felt it was fated to you when you walked in yesterday.”
She shook her head “You…um…the owner when I was young said that this clock was very old, even then.”
Jorrin nodded “It’s Victorian, made in 1895. Rather rare actually, only a few of them ever existed.”
“I can’t afford this,” she said as she handed it back to Jorrin, almost reluctantly.
Jorrin smiled as he pushed it back into her hands “You misunderstand, it’s a gift. You just have to promise that your granddaughter will enjoy it.”
She looked at him blankly “But…it must cost a fortune…”
Jorrin laughed “It’s been in this store since it opened…I won’t miss it. In fact I only just fixed it; it had been sitting in the backroom for years. Ever since the day it fell off the shelf and struck you, actually.”
She blinked and turned her eyes to the clock “It’s beautiful…you… your father? He tried to give it to me then. He said that any good clock knew who it belonged to.”
Jorrin laughed “It’s true, I suppose. They say that a good clock will tell you when it’s time to pass it on.”
She held it carefully and looked at it. It ticked softly, almost as though it has just been built.
“It stopped a long time ago when it didn’t get to go with you, but I think that it will be just as happy in the hands of your granddaughter,” Jorrin told her “be sure that she takes good care of it.”
Jorrin carefully took the clock from the woman, safely wrapped it in some paper and placed it in a box, he handed it back to her, and she gently laid it at the bottom of her bag.
“Thank you,” she said it reverently, like Jorrin’s little shop was a place of worship.
“You’re very welcome,” he said as he guided her to the door “and I’m sorry that you didn’t get to take it then…but things do happen for a reason.”
She nodded and touched the scar on her forehead.
When she had reemerged into the world she looked back at Jorrin “She’ll love it,” she told him confidently.
“I’m sure she will. And don’t worry. Just because you’ve never had the clock, doesn’t mean it will stop ticking any time soon, Eve.” Jorrin explained simply.
“I…never told you my name…” she answered slowly, quietly.
“Well…no, but you I’m sure you were such a polite child all those years ago when you first came into the shop. And polite children always introduced themselves to their elders.”
She stared at him for a long time, mouth slightly open, before she reached out her free hand “My…my name’s Eve.”
Jorrin took her hand gently “It’s a pleasure, Eve.”
For just a moment Jorrin saw the little girl who came into the shop sixty years ago and gaped, mouth open, at the glass and metal and marble clocks.
She had said that the way the sun shined through the window made it look like the whole shop was made of crystals. Jorrin whole heartedly agreed with that sentiment. In fact, the way the sun shone through his window was one of the reasons he was unwilling to move.
Jorrin watched her walk away from his shop for the last time, glancing back just like she did when she was a child, but this time with the clock that should have been hers all along, but was now bound for another.
After a long time he turned around and settled behind his table.
He glanced up and looked at the light streaming though his window, glinting and playing across his clocks like they were living things.
It wouldn’t be long until he needed to leave, but that time was still a little way off.
He sighed happily, adjusted his sandals, and leaned back.
His eyes shut slightly as he listened to the soft ticking of the different clocks around him.
-End
