Midnight Theatre: Tales of Terror

by Greg Chapman

  * * * * *

  The Breadth of An Instant

  Time is lost to us.

  Perpetuity and motion have ruled our existence since we were first spawned from that divine spark, but we have never been able to grasp its true meaning. We have only begun to understand its complexities. But hairsprings and crown wheels are not the true measures of time.

  For more than fifty years, time has dictated my life. I have sought to repair the seconds and the minutes and the hours until they were mechanically sound again. However I am nothing more than a humble watchmaker. Even with all my expertise, time is beyond me, it is beyond all of us. I can see its influence every time I look in the mirror.

  Time is the constant. We try in vain to slow it down, but all we can do is count the days until we are dust. My wife, my love, is dying. Forty-three days ago, time caught up with her. Foul cells, festering inside her, have reached their horrible zenith and she is coming to an end. Now I am counting the seconds as she lies in her bed, motionless; out of sync with the woman she used to be.

  As I watch her weaken and wither and hear her moan with agony, the swing of the pendulum in my grandfather clock is ever constant; it is her death knell. My beloved is dying before my eyes as time takes her away from me.

  I first met Claire when we were both twenty-four. She brought in her grandfather’s fob watch to be fixed, a beautiful heirloom, as radiant as she. I fell in love with that timepiece and I fell in love with her. I restarted the watch and in turn, we started a wonderful romance. I counted the seconds between our engagements and I savoured the time we were together. Now, time is mocking me.

  I have cuddled Claire to sleep through the pain, but the pendulum’s call is becoming too much. It was the first grandfather clock I owned and it always soothed me, but now I want to be rid of it.

  I try and get away from its call by going out into the yard, but I can still hear the tick tock in my head. No matter how far away I walk, it’s right there with me. I end up crouching in the garden shed with my hands over my ears, hoping for the answer to make it stop.

  Then I see the garden tools, rusted from lack of use. I see the shovel and the axe.

  I carry the axe inside and stare at the clock one last time. Its mahogany frame and glass face smashes into a thousand pieces when I swing the heavy blade down. The screaming symbol of time is no more. But, when I turn back to my beloved, I realise that as I was tearing the clock apart, she was taking her last breath. Alone.

  As I stare at her with tears in my eyes, she looks so calm while my heart burns with hatred and contempt. It is not her time; the years, months and days of our future have been stolen away like a whisper in the wind. In a rage I wander the house and collect every timepiece I can find: digital alarm clocks, wristwatches, wall clocks and even the fob watch. I take them all to the fireplace and I toss them into the raging fire. Time can go to hell for all I care.

  Suddenly I hear the swing of the pendulum again. I turn and there is the grandfather clock, reconstructed and repaired, as if I never smashed it. The rhythm of its pendulum sends me into a trance. The hour strikes twelve and the great gongs shake my ears. But as I reel, to my horror, the door of the clock opens and a robed figure steps out.

  The figure is encumbered in a black shroud. His skin is as white as alabaster and his eyes pulse with a deep darkness. He calls to me with a voice that seems far away and in my head at the same moment.

  ‘I am the Hour,’ the robed figure says. ‘I am the twelve and I am the one. I am the herald of the sun and moon.’

  My body is frozen and I cannot speak. The entire house and the air within it grinds to a halt. The robed figure pulls down his hood and there on his face is my expression, my eyes, my mouth and my lengthening wrinkles. He is me.

  ‘You have defiled yourself,’ the robed figure says. ‘You, a servant of time, have blasphemed.’

  Suddenly I can speak, as if the robed man turns something on inside me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say, quivering.

  The robed figure walks to me, a staccato movement that moves in harmony with the giant pendulum. Soon I am looking at my face; a face that has aged a hundred years.

  ‘You are our servant,’ he says. ‘I, the Hour and my brothers the Minutiae and Seconds ordained upon you a gift; a gift which you have squandered.’

  ‘Squandered? I am just…a watchmaker.’

  The robed man bellows with rage and the pendulum begins to swing faster.

  ‘Watchmaker? You are our disciple! You were chosen to craft our language into the weave that holds the universe together – you and so many others. We gave the world the sundial and the clepsydra and humanity lives by our laws. But you have broken them.’

  I stare at him. He is condemning me, but it is he who has cursed me.

  ‘You took her from me,’ I scream back. ‘All I had was those stupid watches and then she came and time took on a whole new meaning. Now she is dead. If it wasn’t for you I would never have met her and now I have to live the rest of my life alone – all because of you!’

  The Hour considers me with a turn of its head, then in a nanosecond he reaches inside my chest and I feel an incredible pulse pass through my body. There is a blinding light and then an overwhelming darkness.

  Tiny shards of light appear in the black void and pass through my being. Then I am outside my body and I watch my physical shell as it’s twisted and turned across the fabric of space. After what seems like forever, the door to time finally closes and I find myself back inside my body, sitting in my old watchmaker’s shop.

  The bell above my shop door chimes and I look up.

  My wife, twenty-four again, steps inside, smiling. I know that smile; I know this moment. The Hour has blessed me for my patronage. My future wife steps up to the counter and presents that immaculate fob watch. I cannot wait to relive the conversations, to hear her speak again. Time has given me the chance to love her all over again.

  But wait.

  The bell chimes again and I look up. My wife, fifty years older, crawls inside, screaming. I know that scream; I know this pain. The Hour has cursed me for my treachery. My wife, struggling to breathe, tries to cry out for me. I dread the thought of having to watch her die again.

  Time has cursed me …

  But wait …

  The bell chimes and I look up …

  Time has cursed me.