The
red-haired woman stepped inside the store and headed straight toward
the cash register. After greeting us, she laid a box on the counter and unwrapped a hideous bauble. I recognized one of our golden clocks.
Everything in it symbolized bad taste, from the poorly
painted ornamentations to the plastic imitating metal. We had
received three of these, one of which had been on display in the
window, so they had sold quickly despite their deplorable
price-to-quality ratio.
The
customer's timepiece did not work well. Apparently, the hands
accelerated or decelerated for no reason. Hitting the pane with a
nail sufficed to adjust the mechanism, but it did not last. Inserting
new batteries had not solved the problem. The customer was hoping to
exchange her clock; however, we had run out of them; she was forced
to choose something else. The defective item belonged to a low-price
batch, and we could not return it to the supplier.
My boss gave it to
me, even though the novelty was not our style at all.
“Thanks!”
I said. “Marshall is in for a surprise!”
The
hands showed only 3:30 p.m. when Marshall came home. I jumped at him
and took him to the bedroom for a timely nap. A little later, I asked
him why he had been let go so early. I glanced from his puzzled look
to the golden clock's pane. It had stopped. Ultimately, instead of
surprising my husband, I was hoisted on my own petard. I told him the
story, which gave us a good laugh.
The
timepiece would have ended in the recycling if we had not invited
friends over the following day. Like me, Cosima worked in a store
selling decorative accessories. My husband cooked a delicious meal,
we shared enthralling conversation—and the item went completely
unnoticed. When Geoffroi and Cosima left, my watch showed 11 p.m.;
the clock attested merely 8:30 p.m.
During the night, I had an idea that I enacted the next morning. First, I sat in a comfortable armchair with a book by Angela Huth. How delightful! After about forty pages, I glanced at the bauble. The second hand appeared almost motionless. Indeed, I had not noticed the time passing.
Then
I took an apron, vinegar, and wipes and got down to cleaning.
Scrubbing the bathroom seemed to
last for hours. As soon as I was done, I rushed to the living room:
the hands turned at full speed.
The
timepiece worked perfectly, but it represented the psychological
time. What would we do with it? Would my love discover how much
science fiction bored me? Would we exchange conniving glances when
certain family members declared that our clock was fast? Too bad it
was so ugly, I thought, as I put it away in the closet.
Published in the Dark Lane Quarterly Collaborative anthology
Published in the Dark Lane Quarterly Collaborative anthology