The Horologist Read online

  When Bram heard Oliver order another drink, it was over before it began. Bram barked across the café, “You might consider Pimm’s, boy. It’s my personal favorite for the holiday.”

  Oliver looked up with a gruff face and an uninviting tone. “I’m under the spell of peach schnapps right now . . . but thanks.”

  Bram plucked his Pimm’s off the table and wobbled over. “For this time of year, it’s splendid to have such a day.”

  He of course, was referring to the weather. The weather! How do I escape this conversation? thought Oliver, not eager to have uninvited company.

  The bulldog took a seat beside Oliver. “Since we’re on the subject, you should hear my theory about why everyone talks about the weather when they have nothing better to say.”

  Oliver finished his second Bellini and listened to his intruder’s unabridged monologue about the weather. When Bram stopped, he pulled his head back with a puzzled look.

  “You know, dear boy, I must ask. Who are you?”

  “Sometimes I hardly know.”

  Bram swirled a spoon through his Pimm’s, then lifted an eyebrow. “Oh—and how is that? Doesn’t everyone know who they are?”

  “Somedays I think I do, and others I don’t. The new year always makes me question myself. I can tell you who I was last year, but I have no idea who I’ll turn into this one.”

  Bram pointed his paw to the pedestrians moving along the canal. “Do you think these people know who they are?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I guess not.”

  Bram was flustered by this. For his whole life, Bram had thought everyone knew themselves, yet this boy was saying the opposite. He sucked through his straw like it was the last noodle of spaghetti on earth. “Look here, boy. People must know who they are. How else would they go about their day?”

  Oliver began to grow unpleasant. “Is this all you’ve come over to say?”

  “Why! Keep your temper, young man. Do you think you’re above me!?” Bram had swelled up in his chair. Bubbles brewed in his Pimm’s. “Let me tell you something . . . the fastest way to analyze someone’s intellect is to assess the people around them. You are alone, on a holiday. What does that tell me about you then?”

  “Don’t you have something better to do than attack me!” There was concern in Oliver’s voice. “You are alone too, you know.”

  “No, I’m not! I’m with you.”

  Bram’s words seemed to shock them both. Oliver and the bulldog leaned back in their chairs and looked at each other with inebriated eyes, realizing that they were ruining each other’s holiday. Bram coughed to open his throat. “I believe we’ve started off on the wrong foot, my boy. We built a wall between us . . . let us turn that into a door.”

  He then ordered a new round and offered to cover the bill.

  The two drank until the sunlight receded, when the serene black sky shuttered against quick flashes of light. Fireworks, bold in color and eruption, sparkled in the night.

  “Perspectives, perspectives.” Bram’s multi-chin stretched into a gullet as he looked up. Both he and Oliver were sufficiently intoxicated now. “It’s easy to forget about all the marginal events that happen outside of view . . . the things we don’t see. Yes, the fireworks are beautiful, but think of how wonderful the performance is on the launch pad, of the orchestration and the precision of the operating team. We must always think a layer beyond what we see.”

  Bram wallowed in his role as a phrasemaker while Oliver kept his eyes on the sky.

  “Our mind holds many dubious beliefs, beliefs that are false conclusions made from the evidence we see. It is our own flawed attempt to cope with these inconsistencies that lay bare our inferential shortcomings.”

  The Pimm’s finally issued its finishing touches on Bram as his words began to slur together. “And the price we pay for not knowing our own shortcomings is severe. . . Hiccup . . . Flawed thinking . . . Hiccup . . . is a slippery slope. Because what we think is what we do . . . Hiccup . . .”

  Bram lifted his right elbow. His hand flopped behind his neck. “You see patterns in the sky. You see order in the world, but it’s all just chaos . . . and the mind cannot deal with such a thing.”

  Bram’s head dipped back. His eyes closed, and his hands dropped like branches overweight with squirrels. “But perhaps because we are inept . . . Hiccup. That is what makes us human. What we really seek is approval . . . a pat on the back from others . . . recognition . . . a feeling of importance . . . Snore.”

  Bram was burnt toast.

  Oliver quietly watched the sky flip in color. When a firework would pop, a wave of happiness rippled through him as he thought about what he had already accomplished on his journey. At midnight, the finale roared.

  As Oliver watched the fireworks dissolve into the night, he contemplated the year ahead, wondering if life would only grow more complicated and entangled as he experienced more and more of the disorder in the world. He thought back to the cairn he had seen when he left home. Time is so capable of crumbling the things we build, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the cairn had toppled. With the sky now wholly black, he ruminated on how much energy it takes to keep the things we cherish from collapsing. Oliver wondered why he had allowed the most beautiful thing in his life to fall to pieces. Perhaps it was just meant to be that way. Maybe there was an overpowering force he could not see. Or maybe he simply hadn’t given enough of his energy to keep love going.

  Bram was still slack when Oliver dropped from the table and walked along. Around the next bend he passed a coffee shop. There were a few people inside, sipping and smoking, and celebrating the new year. Oliver took a cup of java and sat against the wall. To his left, a woman with coal-black eyes removed a rolling paper and set it on her table. She filled it with an odorous, green-and-purple plant with shiny crystal fibers, then licked her lips and spun a straight and smooth utensil. She lit the end.

  The smoke was viscous and calm. She glanced at Oliver and extended the medicine his way, nodding. Oliver absorbed the pill and he felt it begin to settle him.

  Oliver and the woman proceeded until only a thumb’s-worth remained. Then she rose, smiled, and exited into the night. Oliver was still as he sipped on his coffee. He felt balanced, and again he remembered that life would guide him and take him where he was meant to be. His mind cleared of angst and his heart grew unburdened. It had been a strange day, but as he sat in solitude, his apprehension melted into an inner peace and a deafening quiet.

  And he thought, At times, silence is all that’s needed.

  THE AVIATOR

  OLIVER MADE FRIENDS with his hostel manager over the next days. The manager was a woman around thirty with auburn hair and a freckled nose. She spoke with a tranquility that told Oliver she had settled into life and wasn’t chasing more.

  Approaching the end of his stay, Oliver took to her for advice on where to head next. She spoke of an unusual account that had caught her attention a few months back. A group from London had flown across the English Channel on a hot air balloon. The man who owned the balloon was said to give rides during the weekdays. London to the Nederland in the morning, and the opposite in the evening.

  The idea intrigued Oliver. He took her suggestion, and the next afternoon he thanked the manager, and went outside to hail a taxi.

  The taxi pulled up to the launch pad tucked behind a metal refinery. The balloon aviator, Albert, stood against the edge of the gondola writing in a small notepad as Oliver walked over. Oliver had to get alarmingly close before Albert looked up with a timid smile that had seen thousands before. His broad, flat nose commanded his face along with wire-rimmed glasses. Behind the black frames were two black eyes, which, judging by the frequency of his blinks, appeared to be dry. Albert assisted Oliver aboard, then tugged one of the four pilot cords harnessed to the sail, and they lifted off. The air that day was a silver, nebulous musk and the balloon was like a floating ruby gleaming in the mist.

  As they ascended, Oliver stuck his nose ove
r the basket to view the urban grid from overhead. The complex of canals looked like mine tunnels, cutting through a swampland of weathered-brick tract houses. The city slowly faded as the aircraft climbed and pierced through a layer of fog. Albert pumped the burner and looked out over the expanse.

  “The world has become so big, it can be hard to find your way.”

  Oliver rattled away the usual questions one asks on your first balloon ride—things like how long Albert had been piloting, how long their trip would take, and how much the wind would affect this estimation.

  Albert then gave Oliver a tour of the ship. It was basically a lot of helium, a big sheet of nylon, and an oversized basket. Afterward, Oliver asked, “What were you writing about when I walked up?”

  Albert was cautious, but he revealed that he was writing a book, and that he had always wanted to be an author.

  “That’s half the fun of this balloon, Oliver. As I fly people around, I get to use them as characters in my book! I pilot the ship and imagine where my passengers come from and what they’re going to do after I drop them off.”

  “Well, would you like to hear where I’ve been? That way you don’t have to imagine.”

  “Do we know each other well enough for that?”

  Oliver laughed. “Don’t you know when you’ve made a friend?”

  Albert rolled his eyebrows like a caterpillar inching along. “It just seems so soon.”

  “Well, perhaps after I share, we can be friends. Or we can wait until we land. It’s up to you how long we wait.”

  Oliver detailed his journey, its ups and the downs and everything in between. Albert studied the words closely, and at each major turning point, he peeled his face back and wiped the fog from his glasses.

  When Oliver finished, Albert moved across the gondola. “You have been through a lot, and yet, you’ve come to me unscathed. Something powerful is pulling you across the world, Oliver, and I intend to very carefully include you in my book.” He stuck out his hand.

  “Friends?”

  “Friends.”

  Oliver rerouted their conversation. “Now, since I’m going to be in your book, I think it’s fair that I know what it’s about.”

  Albert’s reply was not what Oliver expected. He was shy. “It’s only a moderately interesting story, Oliver. I still have a lot to work out.”

  “Well, how many pages have you written?”

  “Pages? It’s not the number of pages that matters, it’s the number of words. And not just the number, it’s the quality of the words that counts.”

  Oliver was amused. How often we think of things one way, only to be enlightened on a better way to think.

  “I have 23,256 words, but I don’t think I have a single quality one. How am I supposed to piece words into sentences and paragraphs and pages and chapters and have it make sense for a whole book? No, no; it is not ready for another’s eyes.”

  Oliver found himself disappointed in Albert. The aviator hadn’t garnered the strength to stick his nose into the alley of literary criticism. He hadn’t even begun the journey of rejection and mass revision. Why is this man so cowardly about something he seems to love? the boy thought.

  Then Oliver considered the upside of Albert’s book, of the scholarly enthusiasm and thematic analyses that generation after generation would develop as they read his text. Oliver asked the pilot, “Will you ever at least try to have people read it? So many good things could happen!”

  Albert, still coy, said, “But my writing isn’t any good, and I’m not sure it ever will be. I’ve read the masterpieces, and I can’t imagine myself producing anything on that level.”

  “But surely the timeless authors started where you are now! No matter the field you’re in, everyone has to work to be great. People who impact society have endured thousands of hours of practice in whatever it is they do. So, if you want to influence the world, you have to work much longer and harder than everyone around you. Albert, don’t stop writing and do start believing in yourself, because greatness isn’t esoteric or elusive, it just needs to be brought out of you.”

  Albert’s face lit up. He looked at the boy, then gave a tug to one of the chords. “You are quite right. Do you know why people read, Oliver?”

  The boy did not.

  “People read to escape reality and let the mind wander. It’s the same with movies and TV. We’re all looking for something, Oliver, and most of the time, we have to turn to places where our minds can be free.”

  This notion stirred in Oliver for a moment. He then realized the tragedy of Albert’s business. Isolation had caused the aviator to lose faith in himself.

  Albert withdrew a brass telescope from his coat and scanned the horizon. Staring through the lens, he spoke. “This may sound odd, particularly from someone who spends so much time in the open air, but it is easy to feel like a fish in the sky, like I’m in a glaucous aquarium, like I’m confined in the clouds.”

  Albert pocketed the instrument, shuffled his hand inside his jacket and removed his notepad. “But even though I sometimes feel lost, as long as I can write, I am well. It is the plasticity of it that does me in.”

  Albert flipped through to a blank page, then spoke of the notepad. “I keep this handy when a good passage comes to mind. The only salvation for a writer is to write. And when it’s good, it comes easy.”

  Albert pulled out an egg-yolk fountain pen and wrote aloud. His words bled out not only as ink, but in a hyperrealist rendering, what Albert wrote literally came to life in the world around them.

  “The sun and wind often argue over who has more power,” he said.

  And suddenly, the sky over the English Channel shifted from overcast and cloudy into a blithe day. The weather around them went soft, and the wind flag fastened to the basket went limp.

  “The wind went first. It wanted to prove its strength. It flexed, and it heaved, and . . .”

  The wind picked up, and the pennant flag went horizontal. Heavy gusts swirled around the balloon and rocked the basket with ponderous shocks. Oliver gripped the weaving. His stomach rose in his chest. Albert kept on writing, and with a supersonic force, a thrashing crosswind collided with the mouthpiece of the balloon. The basket flipped sideways, and the force sent Albert tumbling into a metal gas canister, knocking him out cold. The pen and notepad fell onto the wicker, the wind disappeared, and the sun returned, settling the air and guiding the balloon back on course. Land was now in sight.

  Oliver checked on the aviator. Albert sat upright against the gas canister as if he were doing very hard thinking, but he was thoroughly unconscious. Oliver looked over the basket. The soil was getting nearer and nearer.

  Oliver rose in the gondola and ever-so-carefully he brushed his knuckles along the rungs of the four pilot chords that Albert had been using to steer. He wrapped his fingers around one and turned up to the metal frame inside the sail, studying the mechanism which the chords were fastened to. It didn’t look too complex. He raised his shoulders with a deep breath, looked up at the chord like he was looking up a shotgun barrel, and tugged.

  The balloon dropped a few feet, but quickly steadied.

  Handling each action as gingerly as dynamite, Oliver learned which chord did what; one sent them up, one down, one left, and one right. Now to the rudder. It was like a light switch—on was forward, off was backward.

  Oliver pulled the chords like a puppet master. As he lowered the aircraft, hot air spilled into the clouds and he gradually eased their way towards an enormous lawn in a public park. As the balloon drew closer, a crowd began to gather on the ground.

  Minutes later, miraculously, Oliver set the ship down on the buttery grass.

  Not once did it dawn on Oliver that what the crowd saw was a magnificent airship gracefully coming down for a visit. When the balloon settled, he hurdled the gondola and rushed towards the people for help.

  But when he returned with a groundskeeper, Albert was up, circling the balloon as he prepared to lift back off. The gro
undskeeper chided Oliver for crying wolf. “Sure you’re not just seeing things?”

  Oliver’s voice was hollow. “How did he—”

  Oliver hurried over to Albert. Albert’s pupils were dilated. The blood had returned to his face. All appeared well as the aviator handed the boy his pack. They said basically what you’d expect them to say, except that Albert told Oliver kiddingly that he had landed in the wrong place. Bottom line, this was an excellent outcome.

  Oliver tossed his pack over a shoulder and walked away quite fond of Albert. He just wondered if the aviator should consider writing elsewhere now and then—if he should depart from his life of vicarious stories and uniquely portable magic. There is value in solitude, the boy thought, but true courage comes when you share your dreams with others.

  Oliver then thought about his own courage. He thought about Isabella. Why did I not defend myself? Why did I not stand up and fight for something I love? Why did I just . . . walk away?

  THE CARICATURIST

  AFTER HE LEFT Barcelona, Leo returned to Cantabria feeling defeated. Months passed as he sat in school next to the empty desk where Oliver used to sit. Day by day, regret began to devour Leo. Oliver had never come back, and Leo had never heard from him. Leo found himself continually roaming around their town wondering just what had happened to his friend.

  At night, Leo would stare at the pack in the corner of his room with disgust. Guilt consumed him. And one day it became too much for Leo. He lifted his pack from the floor and left home, again.

  It was a cold, misty afternoon in London. Leo sat defeated on a damp bench just off the River Thames. In the stream of foot traffic before him, an olive-skinned, russet-haired boy scurried across Leo’s line of sight. The vision was quick, but it caused the hairs on his neck to perk up. He rose and hustled though the crowd. Walking in stride with the other boy, Leo turned to the familiar face.