The Horologist Page 13

  Oliver sat on the crunchy white covering of the examination table. The paper cover was supposed to sterilize the room, but really it was a ruse, probably left there for weeks at a time, only serving to comfort the patient that this doctor wasn’t the kind you might hope a wounded Nazi got. As the interrogation progressed, it became clear that this tenured physician completely relied on a few patented drugs whose manufacturers had swiped him up off the record. So not only was this character unethical, but he had no understanding of the mechanics of the system in play.

  Oliver was shameless for the whole appointment, answering laundry questions like “State your name,” which isn’t even a question, with “Don’t you know that?” The physician said he did in a low, throaty growl.

  There was a series of these interactions, leaving the doctor frowning in consternation. Then the open-ended questions came, giving Oliver more room to trifle with his surveyor. He had the doc glued to his stool as Oliver intentionally put forth naïve questions and was rewarded with amusing textbook recitals. The sport was excellent against a nonplussed mind, and quickly it revealed the doctor’s ignorance in nutritional science and primitive psychology. Oliver squeaked by with a passing grade, pretending to wipe the sweat off his brow. “I’m sane. Thank you, Doc.”

  He stood in the corner of the office, scanning the skyline out the windows. If he turned directly around, across monochromatic carpet was a heavy walnut door. To his right was an Ateliers Pinton rug made of a wire, bamboo, and wool, and on top were four cubical, cream-white leather Le Corbusier armchairs with stainless-steel frames. And set perfectly in the center of all this was a glass coffee table with a dark-green hardcopy of The Atlas of the World by Oxford University.

  To the left of this conversation area was the workspace. The L-shaped desk was perpendicular and crisp at each angle, half of it raised over the other so that paperwork could be stored from sight but remain in reach. Three sleeping computer terminals were anchored to the surface next to a stainless-steel phone and a slender lamp. The chair behind the desk and the shelving behind the chair were part of the same set. And on the clean walls were black-and-white originals from known artists.

  Not a soul had been in the office when Oliver’s secretary showed the mayor inside—a portly, sweeping man around five-seven with a forty-six-inch chest. He wore a double-breasted brown suit with a boring blue tie and a boring blue shirt. His cheeks were puffed like he was constantly holding his breath and his chunky lips reached ear-to-ear below his undersized nose. He examined Oliver’s office with a degree of rivalry, and impatiently tapped on the dial of his watch. He was the mayor! He had the upper hand here. Everyone bowed to his political power. Why was he in this office, alone, waiting?

  The phone exploded for the seventh time. The mayor leaned against the armrest of one of the cubical chairs, crinkling the leather, as Oliver came in looking like a million bucks. He was smiling and wearing a checked grey sport coat, tailored, navy chinos—no pleats—and a white dress shirt, dark circular sunglasses, brown loafers—no tassels—and no tie.

  Oliver had no idea the mayor was visiting until his secretary told him in the foyer. Apparently, the national press had picked up the story about Oliver’s departure and splattered it across front pages and TV screens.

  When Oliver entered, the phone was singing away. He greeted the mayor and leapt towards his desk, but when he reached over and lifted the phone there was only the sound of the dial. Oliver set the phone outside its bed and let the buzz lag inside the earpiece. No more calls.

  He took a seat across from the mayor and eyed the deterioration of his leather chair. The mayor’s posture straightened as he spoke with a fluty voice.

  “I heard the news, Oliver. I must say, you retiring so young brings a bleak outlook to our economy. I’ve had council members and lobbyists and business owners calling me since dawn, and you know what they’ve all said?”

  Oliver was dying to know what this carrier pigeon of corporate interests had to say.

  “They say you’ve gone over the wall, Oliver. That you’re crazy.” The mayor said this like it was most precious nugget of information he’d ever given out for free. He let out a small chortle. “I’ve assured them you are not. But I’m curious myself. Why now?”

  This was exactly the reason Oliver wanted out. He wanted to not owe anyone an explanation, to lounge wherever he saw fit, and to unglue himself from his desk and be left alone to pursue something deeper than money. Inside, Oliver laughed at his own foolishness. Being an executive was far from the glamorous first-class fflights and Michelin-star dinners broadcast in the media. It was more about overbooked calendars and boring conferences with people you barely know. How wrong he had been.

  “Oliver?” The mayor bent his neck down, expecting an answer.

  Oliver addressed the staple topic without mentioning the emotional baggage that he had confessed to Leo. He outlined his philanthropic interests, and focused his speech on the accession of an authentic Henri Rousseau painting he would endow to the Museum of Art.

  The mayor hung on his every word as if this idea were the most brilliant thing since sliced bread. Oliver thanked the mayor for all that he had done, and left him blushing as he escorted him to the elevator.

  Back in his office, Oliver placed the phone in its cradle but quickly decided to unplug the line altogether. Rumors had spread about potential takeovers, and everyone wanted in on the action. He then went back to the white chairs near the blue rug and clear coffee table, trying to figure out what he’d do next in life. Oliver found his mind rigid and inflexible. His head flooded with strategies for new investments and considerations of economic trends, as he was unable to detach himself from the career he had worked so hard to build.

  Oliver slid forward and opened the hardback atlas on the table. When he opened the cover, on the first page in sapphire letters was a note that had never been there before.

  Oliver leaned back, crossed his legs, and placed the book across his lap. The note read:

  As a young boy, I was anxious to grow up. So, I imagined myself as a man. I imagined I would be strong, and full, and happy.

  I have now become a man, and I realize that I am none of those things. But I do know why. To be strong, I must allow myself to be weak. To be full, I must allow myself to be empty. To be happy, I must allow myself to be reborn. So, to truly be who I am, I must give everything up that I am not. And that, I can still do.

  THE SUPERCENTENARIAN

  OLIVER WOKE FROM a black well of sleep to find himself sitting in his living room. Last night, he lit a fire and fell asleep watching it burn. He was surprised to find the fireplace still crackling. One little ember on top of the ash had refused to go out. Oliver sat and watched it glow. The little ember showed no signs of wavering. It still had the roar of a fresh fire in it, and in a final stand, it sparked up like a Molotov cocktail. The little ember thundered and flexed and burst into a micro explosion over the ash. Oliver didn’t flinch as it swelled up into a little mushroom cloud in his living room.

  This had no effect on Oliver as he tightened his core and stood to shower off the night before. He returned, exfoliated and composed, and made his way into the kitchen. He checked the time. He was behind schedule. Oliver spooned espresso grounds into his presser, and while the machine began its crunching, he opened the fridge. With full arms, Oliver moved towards the blender across the way, but there was some kind of a pull at his feet. Each step away from the little ember became more and more weighted, and finally, the force pulled him onto the floor and his supplies scattered across the tile.

  Oliver turned. He couldn’t see what was pulling him. Slowly, he was dragged across the room until he was right in front of the pit.

  The ashes began to foam.

  Locked to the ground, Oliver could only watch as the ashes foamed into salty spume, bubbling, waiting to be unleashed. A wave of water suddenly curled up from the ash before pouring over Oliver. The severe celerity knocked him into a churning un
dertow as the surging water flooded his home. Oliver was thrashed about in the current and swept out into an unknown, amorphous sea . . . and he lost consciousness.

  Salt water splashed his face as a gentle tide frothed up and down. He turned over to find himself along the sand of a tombolo. To his left was a small hill covered in tropical plants. To his right was a larger island, lush with forest and dense with peaks. Directly before him was a long strip of sand connecting the rocks on his left to the isle on his right.

  He stood. The ocean at his feet was a crystal green. He looked into the horizon, where rippling whitecaps crossed over a reef. This was the most idyllic stretch of paradise he had ever seen. Nothing else was in sight.

  Then, like the little ember, something exploded in his chest. His knees buckled as he fell back to the tide, feeling like he weighed nothing at all—like the shell of the man Oliver had become had blown away.

  He stood again, renewed. And over his shoulder, the sapphire butterfly appeared. It was different this time. The butterfly floated before Oliver with patience. It wanted him to follow. He tailed the apparition across the tombolo and up the rocks. They climbed the hill up to the peak, and sitting on the crowning ridge top was a home. The home was simple and high-minded, and wonderfully vibrant and cooperative with its surroundings. Around the structure was a glistening garden and glowing and open sky.

  On the crest of the property was a woman. She was mending and aerating a flowerbed, and the air around her was full of dancing gold specks. She looked full and total, like a woman connected to the loveliness and depth of existence.

  When she noticed Oliver, she smiled him over and lent her finger to the butterfly.

  “Hello, Oliver. I am the supercentenarian.” The white-haired woman was in fine shape, with smooth muscles and bright skin. Her eyes were a pale greenish glitter, like a forest pond tucked away in the trees, with a single beam of light piercing the canopy. Wearing a sunhat and gardening garb, she directed Oliver to a patch of roses with the same sapphire and pink stripes as the butterfly.

  The supercentenarian spoke in ubiquitous terms. “Such a beautiful thing—life.” She bent over the flora and caressed a petal. “You wouldn’t guess, but these flowers were an accident. They developed a strange condition early on but somehow grew into these lovely things. Tremendous beauty can arise from the flawed, don’t you think?”

  She then lent the butterfly finger to Oliver. The gentle creature lifted, fluttered, and landed in his palm, but when it touched down in his hand, it passed away as a haze of blue-and-pink smoke wafted into the heavens.

  Oliver gasped at the lifeless shell in his palm, then looked at the supercentenarian like some poison within him had brought death. “I’m so sorry, I—”

  The supercentenarian spoke softly. “Don’t worry, Oliver. The butterfly has always been this way.”

  Oliver looked at her with questions in his eyes. The supercentenarian addressed him with a didactic tone. “Sooner or later, we all go back to where we came from. Yes, the path we all take to get there is our own, but sooner or later, we all go back.”

  She folded Oliver’s fingers over his palm, cupping the faded wings in his fist, then wrapped her hand around his and placed it over his chest. “The things around you do not affect your heart, Oliver. It is your heart that affects the things around you.”

  She turned from the garden and climbed the redwood steps inside. Her home was a single large room with the same degree of flora and life as outside. Brilliant slashes of white sunlight filtered in through green masses of vegetation and hanging gardens. The floor was part pebble seed and part zoysia grass, and a river ran through the middle with a soft waterfall at one end and a deep pool at the other.

  A pair of cushions sat on the lawn next to the river. The supercentenarian offered Oliver a seat and handed him an empty tea cup. She returned with boiling water, bent over, and laid the butterfly inside the cup, slowly steaming the perfume from its wings.

  The supercentenarian nodded him on.

  As Oliver sipped, the tea dissolved in his mouth in a gasified osmosis, like he was absorbing light. A radiance began to fuse within him—something limitless, something he had felt before, like his heart had healed.

  The supercentenarian took a cushion beside the stream. “You have been listening to the butterfly for some time.”

  “Yes, but only when I could not look away, when it caught me off guard. For years, the butterfly frightened me, as I thought I might be going mad. Now, I find myself saddened by its passing. Something tells me I have failed the butterfly, that I have missed its meaning.”

  “The butterfly has much to teach us, Oliver. It is a creature of frivolity. But even with all its beauty, the butterfly is only a suggestion. It chose to show itself to you when it wanted you to think, when it wanted you to look inside yourself and decide which path you might take. Oliver, life is an endless crossroad, in which we are presented different options each day. Once, you knew your path, and you walked down it with faith. Down that road was happiness, fulfillment, and purpose. But somewhere along the way you changed your direction, and it was you who chose to do so. The butterfly has simply been a guide to get you back on track.”

  Oliver took in the tea, listening more.

  “You have been so anxious to improve your surroundings, yet so unwilling to improve yourself as person. Your readiness to run has prevented miracles from happening in your life, and you have paid dearly for it. What you now seek eludes your sense of sight, and is therefore invisible. It eludes your sense of hearing, and is therefore soundless. It eludes your sense of touch, and is therefore bodiless. Kings and queens have spent fortunes trying to find it, but they always come away empty handed. Do you know why, Oliver?”

  He shook his head.

  “Because, they did not let go. To find what you are looking for, you must shed the idea of who you think you are and who you think you should be. Become vulnerable and empty, and what you are looking for will find you.”

  The supercentenarian then asked Oliver to assist her in the garden. They drifted back out to the calm day and trimmed and watered and cultivated the patches. When the work was complete, they reentered her home. Together, they took their places beside the soft waterfall once more, drank the sapphire tea, and sat in silence—Oliver was to wait.

  Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, time passed in this peaceful cycle of gardening and meditation and tea drinking and fasting. And once again, life was simple. The heaviness of who Oliver once was began to recede, and a fresh coat of regeneration began to accumulate over his heart.

  THE HOROLOGIST

  ONE MORNING, THE supercentenarian spoke to Oliver. “If you go into the garden, and decide to go deeper and deeper, instead you will emerge at the gate.”

  Oliver exited her home and strolled outside. He was on the backside of the house when he reached down to pluck a sapphire rose from the mulch, and like a lever, when he uprooted the flower, a plume of a smoke rose into the air and a young butterfly soared out of the ground.

  Oliver lent his finger, but the butterfly hurriedly encircled the house. It fluttered and fluttered, and when Oliver came around front, instead of the garden there was an astral gate. The cosmic sieve did not lead up or down, left or right. The butterfly fluttered in with a hither here, a thither there, and thrice more.

  Oliver followed, and he became so captivated by the butterfly that he lost track of where he was, and with a single flash of hard white light—a blink, a photovoltaic shock—the butterfly was gone.

  Oliver turned in a circle. There was nothing but whiteness in every direction. He walked forward in the white abyss, blind and uncomfortable and utterly vulnerable, but he kept moving. There was no direction in this place—no dimension.

  He kept on until a black door appeared before him. He flipped the parallelogram knob, but it wouldn’t open. He could feel its loose frame, like it had been fitted in ancient history, so Oliver gripped the handle with a simultaneous flip a
nd lift and pushed with all his might. This time it opened.

  He entered a narrow hallway with black-and-white checkered tile and a black runner rug resting on top. At the end of the hall was what looked like an identical door to the one he had just entered, and on the wall to the right were vignettes of Oliver, lined up in black frames.

  He examined the first one. The vignette made him look abstract and geometrical. He shuffled along the rug studying each portrait of himself. They were arranged in reverse chronological order. The farther he moved, the lighter the color of the frame and the more realistic his features grew. In fact, the last one was photographically exact. It was Oliver, as a boy, in a fine white finish.

  He reached the second door. It was a polished, flush sister to the one through which he had entered. This one opened with ease. It was new.

  The Bel Étage was mute and pressurized. Oliver had never noticed how vast the restaurant was. The ivory dining room was astonishing, with thirty-foot drapes the color of snow, lined with gold trimming. The mammoth glass wall stared into a white horizon, the same photovoltaic purgatory he had come from. But now in the distance were hints of black lightning, like a deadened channel of cybernetic web.

  All the tables in the dining room were empty except for one. Seated across the Bel Étage, Oliver saw himself as a boy wearing that same seven-fold tie and virile suit. It was the boy from the final picture frame, a living construal of his inner-narrative. Oliver’s face fell apart. It wasn’t that he had gone backward in time—it was more that the flat circle of time had defibrillated and convulsed into a single, dense core.

  On the near side of the table was an empty chair. Oliver walked across the dining room but didn’t sit. Suddenly, the words he had once heard came back to him. Oliver looked at his younger self and thought, You act like you have it all figured out . . . but you know it as well as I: you are much more than you pretend to be.