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On the face of it.

     It seemed to Brian that from day to day his mood
would rise and fall. It was like the tide in a mess of brackish
water but without any of the handy regularity which might
allow those around him to near his rocky shore and dock,
without fearing the imminent scrape of disaster. His heart
would feel so light and full that it might just pop at any
second and he wouldn't care (though as the years piled on
he did begin to wonder if the residue that gathered around
his waist was merely an outward sign of his beleaguered
aorta). These days were happy ones. In days of blissful
humour such as these, he would slip quietly into the
basement at work and sift through boxes for important
spares for his project.
     Horology, as Brian was terribly tired of explaining,
did not involve him tying a hanky around his head and
waving his hands over a crystal ball. Nor, he was at pains to
add, did it mean that because Jupiter was rising into Leo
that the bold were going to be lucky in love.
     Horology is time, is measurement, is clocks. It is
also his life. The horologists in Church Lane had been a
fixture in Kidderminster since the war, when Mr. Metzger's
(the tailor) twin brother Eric had opened up his shop. Since
then the casual ticking and swinging of pendulums had
cascaded, like the tiny gallop of miniature horses hooves,
from his door. At the turning of the hour there came an
unearthly din which lifted the skin of dust from countless
wooden cases and glass faces. In the eighties there had been
a move towards the digital, the LCD, the novelty watches
which played the Bond theme, the watch/calculators - too
small to use and too cumbersome to be comfortable. Yet as
the millennium approached there was a definite trend
towards the old fashioned timepieces. Eric Metzger felt
secretly pleased when one of the lads from the local sixth
form came in and bought a lovingly restored wind up pocket
watch on a chain.
     "Do you like the intricacy, the delicate interlocking
mechanics of the piece?" he had asked eagerly.
     "Oh yeah." said the kid, "And you don't need to buy
batteries for it. I took my old watch into Samuels and asked
 em why it'd stopped, they said it was the battery, I said
 How much?' and they said  only 8 quid'. 8 quid- that's
more than I paid for the bloody thing!"
     Eric's smile locked in a toothy grimace until he
shrugged off the cragginess and went back into his
workroom, behind a glass screen to one side of the counter.
     So Brian had patiently learnt the trade from the old
man, working at the weekends since his fourteenth birthday
and then full time after completing his A-levels. Recently he
had been left alone in the shop for longer and longer
periods, as Eric stayed at home doing marquetry (always the
fine work, it's in the blood) or out playing bowls at the local
club. Forty years of spares, hoarded in shoe boxes, lay
stacked in the basement and it was there that Brian would
sneak and look for parts for the project.
     He had started the project initially, as a way to refine
his watchmakers hands and to while away the dragging
indolent hours. The task he set himself was to build from
scratch, a small wind-up clock. After numerous false starts
and intricate disasters he finally succeeded in constructing a
small and ramshackle carriage clock. Although imperfect (it
frequently finished the day an hour or two too quickly or
broke down midday) this minor success had spurred him on.
He took apart this miniature masterpiece and started to
refine the mechanism, and add more complex systems to the
drive spring. With over half a basement of shoeboxes still to
plunder, Brian had resigned himself to never completing this
first (and last) feat of skill.
     He suddenly found a ready-made deadline in
Samantha and the project was to be his gift to her on their
wedding. There would be flowers and jewellery too -
although he was often called insensitive he wasn't suicidal.
At the core of the piece lay the intricate time keeping
machinery from which dangled the pendulum, beyond that
lay a giant coil spring, oiled, dry and serpent like. With each
slow sweep of the weight the cogs whirled, the snake
languidly uncoiled resulting in the majestic arc of the hands.
The project had four faces, each representing a season. If
there had been a single artistic bone in his body he would
have attempted to paint elegant seasonal landscapes across
each smooth face. As it was he used the component cogs as
an impressionist painter uses oils. A vast mesh of polished
and tarnished teeth seethed and span, creating around each
face a seemingly living picture.
     Winter, at first appearing frozen, was comprised of
thousands of tiny, highly polished wheels, spinning rapidly.
Spikes of ice seemed to grow and melt as your eyes strained
to discern a shape until eventually, lost for a point of
reference, the whole scene dissolved into a shimmering pool
of metal, almost fluid like mercury.

     Brian had first met Samantha through a mutual
friend. She had looked frail, her skin translucent and her hair
(ever changing) long and dyed harshly black. It had the
sheen of a beetle's casing and mesmerised him. When she
spoke, rapidly and enthusiastically, she touched his arm
lightly with her fingertips, sensual and caring. She was
prone to mentally wandering into some barren hinterland
that nothing seemed to penetrate. She would sit quietly,
staring into the middle distance, the corners of her mouth
tilted in a half-smile. She would be addressed, stay silent,
prompted again and as though the sink had been unplugged
her consciousness would drain headlong into her mind
leaving her disorientated, dizzy and confused. When Brian
asked her what happened she shrugged and joked that
boredom had taken her hostage.  It's as though I'm trapped
behind ice, but not in a bad way', she would later tacitly
admit.

     Spring rippled joyously, fluid and growing, the cogs
were propelled upwards then cascaded in cool waves of
rain. Branching patterns which called to mind ivy creeping
quickly across a wall crawled around the scene until they
faded under the weight of new patterns, replenished, new
and beautifully unique.

     It was the weekend and early in their relationship.
She lay in bed and dozed while he went to make coffee. It
was fat cat satisfaction and he knew it, but didn't care.
Plucking down two mugs from the tree on the worktop he
filled the kettle and flicked the switch.  Horologists take
their time' joked the black mug (from a convention) - the
other was white with dozens of pink cartoon pigs scattered
across its glaze (there was even a couple in the mug) and
amid this mass of pink and white sat the black pig. That was
one paranoid artist, thought Brian. Pigs are such happy
animals.
     He slipped a CD into the portable player on the shelf
and pressed play. Hmm, Nina Simone on a Sunday morning,
nice. The gurgle of boiling water rose and momentarily
drowned out that powerful voice. A spoonful of expensive
dark instant into each mug, water, a sweetener for her, a
splash of milk for him, a spoonful of sugar (Brian found the
thought of dieting distasteful) and then stir, stir, stir. She
wouldn't of course, it was the weekend and she was the
bed's until noon. He knew he would get dragged back
inside a little later but at the moment he shut his eyes, took
a gentle sip and savoured the fresh sweet bud of this
relationship. The line of her body beneath the sheets stayed
with him throughout the day and found its way subliminally
into every nuance of his work. Mr. Metzger even noticed,
     "You've done a very fine job on this repair." he told
Brian, who stood dumbstruck, grinning stupidly, "Just
watch it! You'll get yourself a reputation, damn it, you
might even find you have some work on your hands."
     Putting his drink to one side and stroking the
satisfying bristles on his chin thoughtfully, he opened the
window. As the painted joints creaked a blackbird fled from
the birdbath. The smell of mown grass rasped through his
alveoli and strains of blues-diva made the opposite journey,
fleeing swiftly into the morning breeze.

     Summer stole placidly throughout the third face,
large brass parts turned leisurely catching the light and
spreading it gently around the numerals as a warm foreign
mistral. Slightly parched but not arid, golden and great.

     "They were in the first aisle!" she huffed.
     "Well," snapped Brian, "I can assure you that if
you'd pointed them out then I would have put it in the
trolley, even though it has the consistency of curdled milk."
     "You didn't do it, deliberately!" she hissed, "For
Christ's sake Bri, it's tofu, not poxy poison or those nasty
Japanese crackers you eat by the bucketload."
     "Look, I'll wait here, you go and get the stuff
because I'll be honest, I don't know  the first thing about
the stuff."
     "Fine."
     He stood in the aisle staring blankly at the liqueurs.
Rows of sticky powerful aperitifs, brewed for centuries in
monasteries or retreats (to break the tedium), spiced and
sweet aromas plugged with cork and foil wrapped.
     The weeks had formed months which had silently
stealthily gathered into a year (or two?). Shopping at the
supermarket had stolen the lengthy lie ins and lovingly
prepared shepherds pies and bologneses had smothered their
support for Chinese take-away.
     Stags Breath liqueur - a blend of honey, brandy and
aromatic herbs. That can't be right, it must have been a
brave monk who got close enough to those giant pointy
horns to smell the beast's breath. More likely a lie - "So,
Mendel, what was it like?" "Honey and herbs you say? I've
just been brewing something like that, what a great name!" -
and it stuck. He's never tried the stuff himself, maybe they
would have it in one of those pubs that stock shelves and
shelves of specialty spirits.
     "What are you grinning for?"
     He pointed out the liqueur.
     "Very droll."
     They negotiated the till and Samantha found herself
in the car park alone. Fuming, she turned the trolley around
and nearly ran headlong into her fianc‚.
     "What the fuck happened to you?"
     "I just," Brian pulled his arm from behind his back
and handed her a bunch of spray carnations.
     "They're lovely!" she cried.
     "I just thought that, well, I don't always appreciate
you."
     "You sweetheart." she hugged him closely, crushing
the bouquet between them, "now, let's load the car and get
home."

     Autumn had proved tricky, a simple idea rendered
frustrating by technical problems. But the regular
maintenance had paid off and a stunning array of slowly
corroding cogs crept so languorously that movement could
hardly be perceived. Flakes of rust crackled between the
teeth, as rustling leaves, and eventually fell in muddy cafe-
au lait, auburn and chartreuse flakes scattering beneath the
face.
     It was, in its entirety, exquisitely gorgeous.

     It had been a slow day in the shop, even the chatter
of the inanimate multitude seemed sluggish. Metzger had
made a break for the greens while the weather held and
Brian could feel the heaviness in his knotted innards, a
sagging of tender balloons. The dust had settled and
outside, almost out of his hearing, workmen were digging
up the tarmac with jackhammers. Today was not a day to
work on the project. It pained him to feel that it was so near
to completion and yet still so far away from the piece which
he pictured in his mind.
     Technically, the Vivaldi music box was a nightmare,
but having invested so much time and so much hard graft he
didn't want to scrap it now. It needed so much work.
     The work could wait until tomorrow. Only sculpt
when the tide was with you was the harsh lesson he had
learnt. If the mood wasn't right with one false chip, a
slapdash blow in the wrong place and weeks of work
crumbled in an instant. You might salvage something here
and there, but the crucial whole would have been destroyed,
lost forever.
     So, he mooched, mended a wall clock that was due
to be collected in the next few days (silted up with dust,
layer on layer until the gears jammed).
     Brian felt restless and caged. He wondered briefly if
this was how women felt when they were premenstrual.
Then the phone rang.

     "Hello, Metzger's Horology, how can I help you?"
     "Listen, and pay attention, we've placed a bomb in
the shop. It's due to go off at around 3 o'clock so you've
got plenty of time to get out, tell the police that the code is
 Karabakh.'
     "What?"
     The only reply was a click and a buzz.

     "Is everyone out then Sir?" said the young
policeman.
     "There was only me in the shop." he stuttered,
chewing his bottom lip.
     "I shouldn't worry, it's probably just a hoax, having
said that, they did have the right warning code. . . anyway
it's got to be a joke hasn't it? All that ticking in the shop,
like bombs in the cinema, someone's just pulling our legs. I
haven't been called out to a single bomb scare where
they've actually found a bomb. The bomb squad usually
ends up blowing up some old ladies shopping, or some foil
wrapped sandwiches, there's never anything to these alerts."
     "What are they doing in there?"
     "Just checking it out, those boys with their gizmos
can smell a bomb at 20 paces, we call  em dogs, but they
don't like that."
     There was a muffled thud, like TV drama artillery.
Then the bomb squad emerged from the shop.
     "All clear young fella." said a woman in uniform
with sooty black hands, "Just a hoax."
     "What was the bang?"
     "Oh, we found something suspicious in the cellar so
we carried out a controlled explosion, false alarm as it
turned out."

                  * * *

     Brian sat in the basement, leaning pensively on a
charred bench rolling a cog between finger and thumb. The
tide of the day had turned and deep in the recesses of his brain
a sensation of relief was making itself known. He selected by
sight and touch, another cog from the shoebox at his feet.
Joining the pieces together he found that they interlocked. A
perfect match.

©1999 Mark Sexton