Cogs in Time Anthology

by Catherine Stovall

  The times leading up to the revolution, she knew, had been troublesome. However, the upheaval had ended abruptly without bloodshed just days after she had left for The University. The people had gained better standards of living, the cruelty and hazard of being poor in Wren had faded. Yet, her father looked as if his very soul had been sucked from within him.

  On and on she wondered, until the steam-powered carriage halted in the town square. Surrounded by quaint shops and cart vendors, Cassie stared up at an intricately molded, copper clock tower whose face glinted in the sun as the ebony hands endlessly ticked time away. With the setting sun to its back, the clock’s shadow fell across the thoroughfare and ended on the steps of the Town Hall.

  She could not put words to the uneasiness that crept up her spine, and the cold chill that held steadfastly to the air within that elongated shade bearing down upon her. “What is it, Father?” For though she understood, it was what it was, she knew something darker hid behind the copper façade, turning cogs, and grinding gears.

  “That, my dear, is the Time Clock.” A strange sort of regretful pride was unveiled in the man’s voice.

  “Yes, Father, that I am aware of.” The exasperation of a woman quickly replaced the fear and the wonder of a child. “What I meant to say was what does it do?”

  Unbothered by her condescending tone, he chuckled. “You see, my dear, the Time Clock is a wonder of modern technology. Much like the steam-powered vehicle we are riding in, or the magnificent airships, it was created by brilliant minds who understood the problems of today’s era. I can share this with you now that I am assured that your time at The University has served its purpose, and you are no longer tainted with rebel idealisms.”

  “What sort of purpose, sir?” Cassie had seldom called her father sir. Only when their conversations had turned political or very serious, had she used the term.

  “Why population control, Cassandra.” Her father had seemed befuddled for a moment, but recovered quickly. “After the rebel uprisings, those of us in power decided that something simply must be done. The problem with our little town was a supply and demand issue. Too much demand morally, physically, and financially corrupted our little slice of the world. So, we built the machine.”

  “But, Papa, what does it do.” Cassie was confused and becoming increasingly more agitated as she fiddled with the tiny pearl buttons on her gloves in an attempt to prevent staring in horror at the clock.

  “Every man, woman, and child in Wren has been provided a timepiece and a time card. The Physicians, miraculous men there, attach the little pocket-watch device to the person’s heart and graft it into their chest. Then their time card is inserted into the Time Clock. Whatever time, and I assure you it is a random thing, that the clock provides them, is the time of their death. Quite accurate, this contraption, that it has never been a single second late.”

  “Father!” Cassie stared back up at the forlorn timepiece as it glared back down at her with its eyeless face. “How could you? Even the babes, Father, the children?”

  “Now dear, do not fret. It doesn’t hurt. The whole thing is quite painless. And of course the children, I said everyone didn’t I?” He paused, the wrinkles around his eyes scrunching together as he searched his mind to see if he had mentioned the younger generation. Assured that he had, the mayor continued, “My darling, the babes are fitted for the timepieces within an hour of their birth. It is easiest that way. No one has too much time to get attached if they draw a short term.”

  Her face stretched into a mask of horror, unable to form words. In that moment, her heart beat like a drum banging inside her skull, and her father seemed a monster smiling at her without a clue. The fading day suddenly closed in around her, and the clarity of all her worst fears manifested itself in the tick, tick, tick of the clock. She couldn’t bear it, the sound of that thing moving so many people closer and closer to their end without care or feeling. The mechanical beast was devouring the lives of the innocent.

  Her father was talking, unbuttoning his jacket and his shirt. She blinked, trying to force herself to think, to understand the sounds that were surely words pouring from his mouth. A glint of metal and the paleness of flesh caught her eye. She saw it, the timepiece, decorative and obscene. The turning cogs rotated the tiny counter, dwindling the seconds and minutes of his life away. He was dying, this man she loved. His time was near, too near, only a few months left.

  “Papa,” she whispered. Cassie reached out her hand to hover her fingers above the glass shield that protected the device. “Papa?” Her words became a questioning plea.

  “Cassandra, my Cassie, it is alright. Don’t cry, my love. We celebrate death now. No longer fearing when it will reach its bony hand out and drag us to the grave, we can embrace it. We have no reason to live in regret because we did not have the time to say our goodbyes. It seems harsh, I know, but if you think about it, it’s a gift to the ones we love. There was so much I could have said to your mother, if I had known before hand, so much I could have done differently.”

  Love. Love and death. Death, love, and the Time Clock. Love the Death Clock. All the words ran together in her mind as the image of Max’s letter pressed against her conscious thoughts. Unable to turn away from her father and the horrendously pretty timepiece in his chest, she fumbled behind her for the handle to the coach door. The tiny clockwork phoenix inside the mechanism seemed to glare at her with ruby eyes, promising pain. Her hand shook, and her fingers fumbled, but she finally opened the door.

  Falling backward out of the steam carriage, Cassie barely saved herself from landing on the rough stones. Her father yelled her name as he attempted to amble out of the carriage. Without thinking, she grabbed her suitcase from the small open compartment on the back, and she ran. Her feet carried her as far away from the clock and her papa as fast as they could. As darkness fell over the town, she became lost. The streets all looked different, and in the eerie glow of the gas lamps, shadows seemed to reach for her.

  ******

  He waited as the sun set over Wren. She had not come. He chastised himself greatly for daring to hope that she would. Five long years, he had read and re-read her letters without a word in return. She probably hated him, and her response, more than likely a trick to make him hurt as she had during those months of silence. He deserved her ire, and he knew it.

  Taking a swig from the brown glass bottle that sat before him, Max felt the burn of the liquid fire all the way down into his gut. Drinking, she had said it would kill him. Ironically, it had been his only solace since the panic set in. Drunk into oblivion, he could forget how quickly his short and wasted life was being taken away.

  Dipping his chin down toward his chest, he looked at the counter once more. He couldn’t read the numbers well from the odd angle, but he knew without seeing. Four and half years before, they had dragged him, kicking and screaming from the dirt floor hovel where he had lived. His was the first to have the damn machine installed, the most basic and simple design, it looked nothing like the intricate and jeweled pieces the rich possessed.

  When they put the card into the machine, it had chimed. The bells sounded as if they were gongs from hell summoning Lucifer himself. The contraption in his chest had vibrated as it came to life. The ticker spinning until it fell on the hour of his death. Four years, six months, eleven hours, fifteen minutes, and fifty-seven seconds. That was all that would be left for him. Not a second longer would be spared.

  He had wept. Right there in the public square, in front of the crowds of people who had once recognized him as the voice and face of a revolution, he had broken down. Screaming out into the smog filled air, all his anguish and hurt poured out in one name.

  “Cassandra.” The word echoed off the bricks of the buildings and the cobblestones on the street. It resounded over the outcries of the people, and fell on deafened ears. He had given up her love for the revolution, and his victory was the people’s greatest failure.

  Another swallow of the ro
tgut whiskey chased the long ago memories away. He could not undo what had already been done. He could not take back his good intentions. He could only wallow in his deathbed alone. No one left to mourn him. The others threw parties and celebrated their parting as if it were a grand thing. Not Max. No, he laid in a filthy bed, in a dark room, and thought of her.

  The pounding took some time to drive through the drunken cloud of his brain. The demanding voice on the other side of the plank door was muffled but strong. “Max! Max, open up. I know you are in there, you damned fool.”

  Stumbling blindly, he trudged the short distance, banging into the table and cursing loudly on his way. Ripping open the door, he growled, “What is it, Westing?”

  A girl, a beautiful girl stepped in front of him. The gaslight lit her profile, and Max was stunned into silence. Her hair was a mess, her face pale and streaked with tears, and her pouty lips trembled as she held her arms out to him. The invitation to embrace her was so overwhelming that he fell to his knees. His arms wrapped around her waist as his head buried itself in the soft fabric of her torn and muddied dress. Over and over, the said each other’s names, lost in the joy of coming together again.

  At last, pulling up from the dusty floor, Maxwell turned to the man who stood smiling in the shadow of the open door. “Westing, where did you find her?” Turning back to Cassandra as he took in her disheveled clothing and tear stained face, he added, “What the hell happened?”

  Adrian moved across the little one room house as he spoke, pulling a chair up next to the wood stove and grabbing a blanket from the bed. “Good grief, man! Have some compassion! Can’t you see our girl has had a row of it? Let her sit for a moment, and then perhaps she can tells us both why I found her running down Haversham Street in hysterics.”

  Cassandra saw and heard both the men, her two dearest friends from her misguided youth, but her panicked mind couldn’t focus. Reaching a shaking hand out toward Maxwell, she laid her palm flat against his chest. “Oh, no. No! Not you too, Maxwell.”

  Max pulled her into his arms and held her as the mechanical vibration of the Timepiece vibrated through the coarse fabric of his shirt. Weeping uncontrollably, she allowed him to move her to the chair, barely feeling the blanket come around her shoulders. Flashes, images, feelings, and fears coagulated into a thick soup of confusion in her head until she was dizzy with it.

  “Cassie, my beloved, calm down. It’s okay, darling. Breathe. Just breathe. You are here now. You’re safe.”

  “Oh, Maxwell! It was terrible. My father, he’s gone mad. He showed me the Time Clock. It’s ghastly!”

  At the mention of the death machine that stood in the square, both Max and Adrian shared a knowing look that spoke volumes of their knowledge about what had taken place within the town of Wren.

  “What the hell is going on here?” The tears began to dry and her voice steadied. Pulling her shoulders back and pushing her disheveled blonde hair from her face, Cassandra let the anger take control.

  ******

  Seeing that the old Cassie was quickly returning to herself, Adrian handed her a cup of hot coffee and kissed her cheek. “Cassie it’s good to have you home. I will see you tomorrow, love.” The pain he hid behind his smile peeked through as he turned to Max. “Take care of our girl, boyo. I’m sure you have plenty to catch up on.” As quickly as he had swooped in like a guardian angel, Adrian swept from the house.

  As Cassie and Max sat facing each other, a million thoughts and feelings filled the air between them. Their passionate reunion quickly led into a long conversation, as if the two had never missed a day in each other’s lives.

  “Max, I want to know what is happening here. My father he took me to that terrible clock. He was acting strange. He has some type of time thing in his chest now. He said…he said that everyone has them. I ran away, Maxwell. I’m ashamed to say that I am not as brave as I once was.” Cassandra fought back the tears as she spoke, trying to be the same courageous girl who had boarded the train to The University long before that night.

  Dropping his head, Maxwell stared at the floor as the conversation he had never wanted began. “I’m sorry, Cassandra. I should have written you. I tried a thousand times to pen the letter that would tell you what had befallen this place, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to be unhappy. I thought if you stayed away it would be all right.”

  He stopped talking and ran his hands over his face, a broken man confessing his sins. Even as a young man toiling away in the factories, he had held the weight of the world on his shoulders. The burden of guilt had aged him beyond his years long before that moment.

  Cassie knew this side of him well. She had seen it many times in the months before she left. She sipped the bitter coffee, allowing its liquid warmth to take the chill from her still shivering body. Waiting, that was the key to letting him vent his pain, silence and waiting.

  After a few moments, he started again, his voice trembling as if he too were cold. “After the revolution, when the safety regulations were enforced, factory owners turned to machines. They brought them on the airships by the hundreds. Great metal monsters that didn’t need to sleep, eat, or bleed. Most of the town ended up jobless and dependent on the city for their survival. The massive drain on the People’s Welfare Fund emptied Wren’s coffers.”

  “That is what father meant.” Cassie spoke aloud, but the words were only a confirmation of her clearing thoughts.

  “I did this to us, Cassie. I condemned the people to this monstrous machine, which chooses our time of death. The Politicians have taken away the power of God and placed it in the hands on the face of that thing as if they had a right.” Tears streamed down his hardened face.

  Grabbing her hands, he forced her to look into the depths of his blue eyes, and all the things he had tried to protect her from stared back at her. “They gave us these shotgun houses, food to feed the poor, sturdy clothing to cover our backs, and even coins for our needs, but for what? They took away our freedom. We are a hardworking people who have been rendered useless, who have been tied to this town and to that clock against our will.”

  Suddenly, he was the one who wept, and she was the one taking him into her arms. He knelt before her on the floor, his head in her lap and arms around her waist, as he cried out five years of doubts, fears, and failure. As his shoulders shook, Cassie ran her hand through his dark hair, silently letting him release his anguish.

  When, at last, he looked up at her, she didn’t see the wounded man he had become, she saw the boy she once loved. The world and all its problems faded as she bent to him, cupping the unshaven scruff of his cheek with her palm. Their lips met in a passionate fire that burned away everything else.

  ******

  As day broke, Cassandra opened her eyes onto the small, two room living quarters. She took in everything at once, aching to find Max and fearing their reunion had all been a dream. When she spotted him in the dim morning light, he was sitting near the window, watching the sunrise with tears streaming down his face.

  At the sound of her movement, he briskly wiped his face with the back of his hand, and turned to her. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

  “Not at all. I’m used to waking early. What are you doing?” Cassandra didn’t bother to hide the concern in her voice.

  “Just watching the sunrise, my love. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw it.” The sadness in his voice drew her from the bed to wrap the blanket around the both of them as she snuggled into his lap. “I took so many things for granted before. I always thought there would be time.”

  Sliding her hand over his shirt, she let it rest on the slight rise where the timepiece lay. “We will find time, Maxwell. We will make time. Remember, you always use to say that, together, we could do anything.”

  He pulled her closer, laying his head against her shoulder. “If that were only true, Cassie, I would be the happiest man alive.”

  Watching the golden rays of the morning sun peak over the quiet streets of Wren,
she thought over the long night they had shared.

  The sun had finally risen into the morning sky when they stirred, and Cassie finally asked the question they had both dreaded and avoided throughout the night. “How much time do you have, Max?” Her voice trembled despite her attempt to sound calm.

  He turned to her, eyes blazing with pain and fear, his strong jaw set in the rigid line that she knew meant trouble. “Five days.”

  Jumping to her feet, tears sprang to her eyes like glistening droplets of regret. “Oh, no. No! That’s too soon. There’s not enough time. I’ll talk to Papa. I’ll talk to someone. There must be something I can do! I will take you back to The University with me. You won’t stay here. You won’t be dependent on them any longer.”

  His fingers bit into her shoulders as hers gripped the front of his shirt in a white-knuckled panic. “Cassie, stop! I can’t just walk out of here and get on the train. There’s a system in place. If I cross the city line, the Timepiece stops. They made it so that we would never escape their punishment for the revolution.”

  Cassie’s scream of frustration rang out in the quiet room. “Then we will have it removed! The Physicians! They put it in, and they can take it out! I’ll go see Dr. Anderson!”

  She turned away from him, ripping his hands from her arms as she searched for her clothing. Grabbing up her bag, she mumbled to herself, “I’ll need a walking dress, something simple.”

  Maxwell called out her name, but she didn’t answer. Cassie was lost in her thoughts as she rifled aimlessly through the small amount of clothing she had brought, focused on the conversation she would have with the austere, old man. I’ll tell him that there’s been a terrible mistake. Maxwell has to leave, he has to come back with me to The University. Of course, he’ll balk. No man will instantly agree to break law and covenant with his peers because of a simple request. I have my savings. I have enough. I’ll bribe him.