Pendulum Nights

In the twisted horrors of destiny, one man faces his moment of truth

What I remembered, before standing in front of the room labeled Temporal Infinity, was dying. Or at least I thought I was dying. I remembered a doctor standing over me, yelling something about my blood pressure dropping. I remembered feeling as if an elephant were sitting on my chest. Nurses and wires and beeping. So much damn noise. I remembered my ex-wife, Isabella’s trembling hand, the only thing that made sense among the chaos. That was before they shuttled her out of the room. I remembered the weightlessness and the darkness.

You don’t forget the darkness that swallows you within.

When I woke up, there was a door. How did I get here, and why this door? I didn’t know. I didn’t think about it much, really, I just opened it and walked in.

It smelled of old metal, sweat, and burned oil — my father’s old garage. Chrome-steel glistened as giant pendulums danced along the sides of the hallway, swinging scythe-like motion. Muffled sounds screeching with a sickness that made me think of knives dragged along the body of a ceramic plate. I swallowed.

“Hello?” I asked.

Hungry echoes bounced across the moon white floors. Recently cleaned, I noticed, but who polished these floors and why?

I noticed a door at the end of a long hallway, deep and rich mahogany. I walked toward it. Maybe, I thought, it would bring me back.

The hallway was a steel walkway. Walls glistened with half-dome shaped glass on either side. Beyond them, gold and silver pendulums swayed their chaotic orbits: dials, gears, and steel-chains strewn across an unnatural expanse. Leaning over the railing, I saw endless dancing pendulums, some in pairs, others in quadrupole, or more. I wondered about the complexities of these machines and who made them. Sweat beaded my brow like machines of the dead. Dizziness swept me, so I stepped away.

I thought of my daughter, Penelope: How she used to take apart all the clocks in our house, figure out how they worked, and then put them back together. She was a smart and curious kid; no wonder she became a bioengineer. Life was simple back then. How did it get so complicated? How did we lose each other so quickly? It was my fault. I know that now. I chose work over her and her mother. I even slept with another woman because of my self-hatred. Maybe this is my judgment for being such a bad father. It’s funny how I promised to be nothing like my father, neglectful and cold, but here I am — a ghost of dear ole dad.

I seemed to hold a lifetime of shame in my heart and nightmares. Yet, I had to go on. Curiosity was a force, and the door, a magnet pulling me towards whatever mystery waited behind it.

For between the living and the dead sat the machines of eternity moving moments along some cosmic conveyer belt.

I made my way to the door and placed my hand upon it. It felt warm and filled with a gentle reverberation. I shifted my head, putting my ear on the dense, oily wood to hear what was inside.

Within, I heard the crashing of waves, gawking seagulls, and the melody of a carnival, a childhood memory along the Santa Monica Pier. But then it was gone. My stomach clenched as the sounds morphed into the screams of my mother and father; childhood embers I prayed I had forgotten — those fights they had before he took off and never returned. Then I heard my voice yelling and Isabella crying. My heart clenched as it moved to the last fight before my daughter left. “You stopped being a father a long time ago, now I’m just making it official,” Penelope had screamed. And then my voice, “You’re an ungrateful little bitch just like your mother!” Those were the last words I said to her. God, why did I say that? If I could only have one more moment to take it back, I would. I was the ungrateful one.

The sound changed again — this time with a grinding of sick cancerous machinery — the wearing down of this world to its brittle and unkempt nature.

“You sound sick and afraid,” I whispered to the door, placing my hand gently on the smooth wood. My eyes filled with tears as I choked out the words. “I’m sick and afraid, too. I never told them about my heart. I kept it from them like I did my past. Like I did myself. I told myself I would change. But I…I didn’t know how to. Fear can mess with you. I almost hung myself once, did you know that? Funny thing is, it was a broken clock that annoyed me, and I got off the table. Never went back to the rope. I just moved on, ya know?”

The door did not respond to my confession, nor did I expect it to; the sounds behind the door seemed to be worsening- crumbling sandcastles on a beach during high tide.

I moved my hand to the brass handle. With a mournful sigh, I opened and walked into the room of dying machines, praying I would see a hospital room or Isabella again.

Instead, I saw a man sitting at a long oak table covered in parts of old watches. Behind him, the only other thing in the empty room was a large semi-transparent twisted racetrack looking object. The object floated in mid-air, moving as if it were some type of wall fountain. But it was not water, exactly, but something more alien.

The person at the table looked up. He had a long mustache that reached down to his knees. One eye seemed a normal hazel, but the other was midnight black.

“About time they sent my replacement,” he growled. “I’ve been waiting for three galactic turns now.”

The blood rushed from my face. Coherent thoughts scuttled down dark alleyways of confusion. “Who…are you? What is this place? What replacement? I…what is that thing?”

The man scowled. “What is it?! What are you, an idiot? It’s a Möbius loop for god sake. Our loop. And as to who I am, I’m the Temporal Engineer for this world. Well, I was. Now you are.”

“What!? I didn’t…”

“Yeah, we all say that. But if you think that you make your own choices, then you’re drinking too much absinthe,” the man said, shaking his head. He stood up from the table, stepped back, then stopped. His annoyance suddenly shifted to absolute unprovoked rage.

“ALL THESE FUCKING CLOCKS!!!” He screamed, driving his hand violently across his work table, sending the pieces of gears and metal plugs and glass about the room. I ducked, protecting myself from the ejected debris.

He stood there, eyes aflame, laughing wildly. “That’s better. Now, what was I saying?” He started to play with his long mustache and then stopped, face now as serene as any Monk. “Ah, yes. The position.” He trotted away from the table towards me, lending his hand out. I took it. It was brutal and robust.

“Let me begin by saying: I am Jikan Miku Ishikawa. And you are?”

“I uh… I’m Frank Russo”

“Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Russo. So here’s the deal. That Mobius loop thing is going to give me another shot at my failed life. When it will occur, who knows. But what I do know is, I’ve served my time, and now I get what I was promised.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Jikan grinned. “What do you mean, what’s that?!” He snapped again, eyes widened. “Oh yes…Well, to live again, obviously. Like a clock wheel. Big hand, small hand, hours, and seconds. I served time’s loop, and now they owe me mine. Goodbye, Frank.”

Jikan patted me on the shoulder and walked toward the door I had just entered.

“Wait! What do you mean goodbye? What’s my job!?”

Jikan turned back, once more playing with his mustache. “Your job?!” He said infuriatingly. After a moment he composed himself. “I don’t have time to explain relativistic physics or quantum gravity…so…” His voice screeched like dying car-engine. “Sorry, sorry. Well, each reference frame has a clock, and there are a lot of fucking clocks. They break and must be repaired. That’s your job now.”

I worried that this man had been alone for too long.

“But this…this world is sick and dying. I could hear it,” I said timidly, hoping not to make this man snap again.

Jikan nodded his head. “That it is Frankster, that it is. This room and you are the same, buddy. We all got our room of clocks to fix, don’t we? Which is why I’m glad my trial is up. Good luck and … Toodle-oo!”

And with that, Jikan turned quickly and exited the door, one I feared would never open again.

An unbearable sense of loneliness cocooned me at that very moment. It felt akin to being the last human on earth, crying out to vast emptiness. This room was my new enchanted sunrise, and I had no idea what waited for me over the beckoning horizon.

Confused, hands clenched into balls of lead, I turned back to the object floating in the distance. The Möbius-loop, as Jikan called it, had become bright vermillion like liquid blood. It sloshed and wheeled upon its axis of rotation. And then it was back to its standard color, flowing like a river of beguiling wonders.

All the while, sounds of dying machinery moved ever onward. There would be no time to ponder what happened or what this place was exactly. A loud alarm roared, and the first order, in the form of a transparent holographic paper along with a golden pocket-watch, arrived out of thin air. And I, never being much of a questioning type, sat upon the desk and placed the golden pocket watch on the table along with the holosheet.

Please repair the faulty fuse…causing failed isochronism with chain and mainspring barrel. After repairs, location is Andromedus — Kepler452b…relativistic factor 0.06141, location 1402 ly from Sol-1. - Temporal Repair Committee

I looked at the faulty watch. I did not see time or dials or gears. Instead, I saw the Möbius-loop, ebbing within the shadows of this place. And within my despair, I did as I was bid to do…I repaired. And as I restored, I thought of Penelope and our fight. I thought about what I would say differently. How much I loved her. How proud I was. How many times would I replay this moment? I wondered.

Memories are the broken clocks that always need repairing.

My calloused fingers danced along with those broken memories of my ex-wife and daughter — the mistakes I sowed. Maybe, like Jikan, I too would get another chance again. I will be a better father, I tell myself, and husband and person. I will make better use of my time and heart. I would end the loops of time.

I placed the loupe over my eye, and through it, the world of microscopic marvels became clear. During my repairs, I wondered when my replacement would come. In the background, the Mobius Loop’s creaked and moaned, as if ice were forming along its edges and inside its flowing heart. I listened as the machines of this place, whined and cried out their dying soliloquies to the eternal rusty room.

For I knew, deep within my regretful heart, that these pendulum nights would soon come to us all.

© Bradley J Nordell 2020