A Very Short Trip
He opened the door with a flourish, revealing a long, low room, the far wall disappearing in the distance. The sidewalls, though still far apart are visible, giving the room the transitory feeling of a hallway. But it was not the scale of the room which was startling, it was the contents. Every inch of the walls and most of the floor was covered in clocks, clocks of every size and description, from stately Grandfather's in dark cherry and oak with their brass weights gently shifting, to baroque mantle clocks, ormolu confectioneries with their pink painted figures frolicking on swings, to pendulous pocket watches fit for giants pockets, their minute gears and crystals exposed behind glass. There were wooden clocks, brass clocks, paper clocks, and water clocks, and even plain blocky digital alarm clocks. Wrist watches dangled in clumps, sleek and classical, contemporary and funky, and children's watches with bubble faces and bright plastic bands. Tiny locket watches on silver chains hung from brutish nails in the walls or even from other clocks. There were clocks sitting on other clocks, blocking other clocks, and supporting other clocks. There were alarm clocks that rang, chimed, dinged, sang, moved, danced and screamed. There were clocks which projected their times onto walls, or presented a succession of lights or rolling balls. Many of the clocks showed dates as well. Most showed a standard configuration of the 12 months or moons and 12 or 24 hours, but some bore mysterious symbols and impossible times such as the 14th F hour of the 47th day of the L-minus months, or 93rd day of Zelnick in the 72nd year of Great Somsquat, (may he live forever). None of the times were the same, and the combined sound was louder than one might expect. A great rushing of clicks and whirs, metallic rings, and rustlings and vibrations that one almost felt rather than heard. It was like a room full of very precise typists typing slowly on manual typewriters, even down to the faint ding of returning cartridges, and of metal sliding over metal.
"Every clock in here records the current time on all of the worlds and in all of the times I've ever visited. Every time I stop somewhere, a new one is added," he said expansively, his white hand and slim wrist in the green velvet sleeve encompassing the nearly endless room with a grand sense of accomplishment.
"Wow," I said, impressed, "so that means that you can tell the time on, say oh, I don't know the western coastal cities of the second planet of Alpha Centauri at this very moment?"
The green velveted arm sank back to his side dejectedly, "Well, erm, no. I have no idea which clock represents which stop." Without looking at me he spun on his heel and walked out of the room, pausing impatiently at the door for me to follow. From somewhere deep within the recessed mysteries of the room a clock began to chime the half-hour.