.

his name is JB and he stands behind a cluttered counter
which is strewn with tiny metal cogs and screws that tap
when touched. his fingers slowly slide across the glass.
the shifting glint of metal looks like sun on rain.
he is precise. well groomed with silver hair.
soft voice.

a clockmaker. a keeper of time. his business card depicts
the moon and stars in brown ink on cream Arche. beneath
this quiet illustration are his words;

"mercury and aneroid,
barometer repairs,
case repairs a specialty".

clocks of every imaginable size and shape fill his storefront
studio. they rest on tables and walls, stand upright on the
floor and lean against chairs. after the door nestles shut,
after the clink of a small brass bell and the creak of wooden
floorboards, time is sandwiched inbetween the mechanical whirr
outside and his sequestered inventions. a thousand ticking
clocks blanket the incessant grind of the street, all beating
out of unison like hearts in conversation. some have chimes
but all have measure.

I am struck by an overwhelming sense of clocks not ticking
down, but up, as if towards a heartbeat. towards some originary
joy, but multiplied a thousand times.

I ask him to help me locate a particular kind of mantle clock,
the one I have been searching for forever. he tells me that he
can probably find it, but that it will cost alot to replace
particular parts. he will probably have to remake those parts
by hand, and if necessary, also create the tools to do so.
anything to get the piece to work "like new".

we both agree: clocks are fascinating mechanisms to observe,
but time itself is a dangerous notion, unless it is contained
within the beautiful brass precision of the cogs.

alignments.

as I leave, I find myself asking the obvious; what is time?

is it Nietzsche's history of an error? noon, moment of
the briefest shadow, end of the longest error, high point
of humanity, incipit Zarathustra? perhaps it is Shakespeare's
time out of joint, outside itself? that old sun, seen through
a heavy mist of skepticism closely followed by a veil of dusk,
slow drift into nothing? or is it the thing that comes before all
else, the blood red dawn of his first words to me? maybe it is
the gray of morning, first yawn of reason and the cockcrow
of positivism? oh bright day, breakfast, return of bon sens
and cheerfulness, like Plato's embarrassed blush
and pandemonium of all free spirits?

or is time just a watch, meant to measure its own invention?