Cal's Clocks

The old factory was abandoned.  It had been for some years.  Back when times were good, the conveyor belts moved with a hasty efficiency, workers filled the spaces between machinery, the executives smoked cigars in their offices, and the clocks were shipped out by the dozens and by the hundreds.

            And then it crashed.

            The machines ground slowly to a halt, protesting as the cogs and pistons froze.  As the workers filed out.  As the execs straightened their paperwork for the last time.  And the lights went out one by one, leaving half-finished clocks in the dark.  Years passed and the town moved on.  The factory was left abandoned, part of an urban ghost town that no one wanted, and no one remembered. Except for one boy.

            Cal would say he came from a good home he supposed.  His mom and pop were happily married.  His little sister was tolerably un-annoying, which is about as much as one can ask of a little sister.  His teachers never had much to say about him.  Cal always did his homework, always received good grades, and never caused trouble in class.  Occasionally one would comment that he didn't seem to fit well with the other children.  Cal supposed this was true, but he didn't really mind.  He preferred his own company.

            Cal, being a boy of only twelve, and not much interested in the past, didn't know much about the events leading to the abandonment of the factory.  He didn't know why a large section of the warehouse district was abandoned.  He didn't know that a large section of town was once owned by a greedy multi-millionaire.  Or that that greedy owner had involved himself in unseemly business to support his gambling problem, which had led to the eventual collapse of his clock building empire.

            No, Cal didn't know much about economics or embezzlement.  But he did know something about clocks. 

Cal had first discovered the factory as he was taking a detour on his walk home from school.  He often did this, as it gave him more time to himself before arriving home to the ‘How was school’s, and the ‘Did you make any friend’s from his parents.  On this particular day, he had turned left at the clock shop, the second crossing instead of the third, reasoning that he could find a way through the alleys back to the main street easily.  The old factories and warehouses loomed over the narrow streets, crowding out the early spring sun.  The shadows began to grow longer and longer in the setting sun, but Cal was locked into his own thoughts.

Eventually Cal surfaced from his reverie long enough to see how very lost he was.  Cal’s footsteps slowed, then stopped, echoing between the buildings.  As he turned to go back the way he’d come from, a glint, nestled between two warehouses leapt out and caught Cal’s eye.  He turned and looked down the alley from which the glint had originated, then glanced back the narrow road out of the maze of factories.  He hesitated, indecisive, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet.  He nodded to himself and headed down the alley.

There, hidden in the half melted snow, in the shadow of a doorway, was a clock face.  It was not quite two feet across, and no frame or casing was attached.  Half of the mechanics seemed to be missing, but the face of it… it was the most beautiful piece of machinery Cal had seen in his young life.  The face was clear, so that if finished, it would allow a view into the gears and inner workings of the thing.  The pieces still attached were made of solid steel, brushed with bronze paint.  The hands were painstakingly worked into spirals and loops, twisting around themselves intricately, though the metal forming them was only a fraction of a centimeter wide.

Cal looked up suddenly, remembering the time.  The sun had set fully leaving Cal in the twilit alley and very, very lost.  Cal shoved the clock into his school bag, and after a solid hour of wandering about the deserted roads, Cal finally found a main road.  He hurried home to find his normally unconcerned parents nearly in hysterics over his temporary disappearance.  Cal brushed off their questions saying he had tried a shortcut and gotten lost, which was mostly true, then rushed off as soon as he could to his room.

That night, after all in his house were asleep, Cal pulled the clock out of his bag and set it carefully on his desk, not wanting to knock off any gears.  He snuck down the stairs and retrieved his father’s laptop, then quietly retreated back to his room.  He sat the computer on his desk and pulled up several articles on clock making.

His research continued for hours, stretching into the small hours of the morning. It was nearly morning when he finally crept back down the stairs, to return the laptop to its original position.  He returned to his room and collapsed into his bed right as his alarm sounded.

Cal tried as best as he could, to repair the insides of the clock, but not only did he need more parts, the clock needed beautiful parts.  The gears and latched he had salvaged from a broken clock in his attic had had the parts Cal needed, but they looked out of place among the hand crafted pieces in the masterpiece he’d found in the alleyway.  One day after school he tried to find the place the clock had come from, but his search was fruitless.  For nearly a month Cal searched for the clock factory.  And on the thirty-fifth day of his search, Cal finally found the factory.

Cal rounded the corner and immediately recognized his surroundings.  He rushed to the nearby door and tried to open it, but time and weather had rusted it shut.  Cal pushed and pulled all he could, and just as he was about to give up, the door gave way.  Cal stumbled into the factory.

Dust lay thick upon the outdated machinery, and swirled in the sunbeams pushing through the grimy windows.  Parts were still piled in boxes and on the belts, clocks lay on every surface, still waiting to be shipped out or finished.  Graffiti covered the walls, colors and designs and words crowding in on each other, vying for space.  A few pieces of paper floated around on the breeze now drifting through the door.

Cal looked around, glancing briefly at his surroundings, before his gaze came to rest on the other unfinished clocks left in their places.  He walked slowly over to those parts, his eyes locked on the parts he needed to finish his clock.

 

Seventy-three days after Cal found the factory, he finished his clock.  For the next two-hundred-and-eleven days Cal finished twenty-six clocks.  Cal walked from school, past the old clock shop, to the factory, and worked an hour or two after school every day, with the excuse that he had joined a robotics club that met after school.  After the twenty-sixth clock was completed, Cal decided to try to build something new, as he could now assemble clocks blindfolded and half asleep.  So he began to invent.  Little things at first.  A thingy-ma-jig that would jump every hour on the hour.  A wind-up toy for a cat to chase.  But these little things gave way to bigger things.  Cal made a sterling engine powered by heat differences.  He made a dart gun that could shoot a nail across the factory.  He made a foot tall robot that walked on two legs.  And as his ideas got bigger, his family and his school work got smaller.  He spent hours after school working on his creations in the factory.  He stayed up till the ungodly hours of the morning, then slept through his classes at school.  He only spoke to his parents at dinner, then rushed off to cram in a little homework before sketching new designs for his clockwork inventions.  And he didn't notice his parents growing concern.

Cal lived for the times he spent in the factories.  He had never connected to the other children his age, and he liked reading books more than playing games outside.  No one bullied him exactly, but no one wanted to spend much time around him either.  So he made clockwork people instead.  It took several tries to get one to even stand without falling, and even longer to make one that could walk.  Cal even bought a laptop and some electrical components (costing him almost every penny he had) to program his robots.

Six-hundred-and-seventy-seven days after Cal had started working in the factory, he finished his masterpiece.  It had taken every single gear, pendulum, nut, bolt, and screw that Cal could find, including those that had been used in some of his old inventions.  Cal had even had to buy some electronic parts from a hardware store, leaving him entirely broke.  But in the end, Cal thought it was worth it.

The last gear had slid in rather easily.  One would think that an ending like this would fight and protest like those factory machines did so long ago; this gear moved into place without so much as a whisper.

Cal finished tightening the last bolts.  He passed through the ranks of his clockwork army, his masterpiece.  Each of the twelve clockwork people could mill around under their own power, at their leisure.  They could jump, they could shake your hand, all at a command from Cal’s computer.

Cal stood for a moment looking at his creation, the reason he had worked so hard for the last three-hundred-and-sixty-six days, the reason he hadn't minded not having friends, not going to dances, not ever talking to anyone.  Then he turned to go gather his things.  Now it would be back to his house, back to dull routine, back to caring.

Suddenly Cal sank to his knees.  He couldn't go back to that.  His old life had been hell, doing nothing, making nothing, on and on, wearing a rut in the ground. Anything was better than that.  Death would be better than that.  He paused for a moment teetering on the edge of that thought.  But no.  If he died, his machines would rust and be forgotten just like this old place.  Like that clock when he’d first found it.

 “That old clock,” he croaked to himself, shaking his head, with a bit of a smile.  He still had it somewhere, tucked away in his room.  It was the one thing he’d refused to scrap when he’d started running out of parts.  The clock that started it all.

An idea began to form, coalescing bit by bit into an almost tangible idea.  The clock shop.  The one he passed every day on his way to the factory.  It was obvious now that he thought about it.  He ran home and grabbed the clock out of his room.  Seeing one of his old clockwork toys, he grabbed that too, then darted out again, to the clock shop.

He burst through the doors and ran to the man at the counter.

“How much would you give me for a clock like this?” Cal asked, setting the clock on the counter.  “Or something like this?” he said, placing the toy on the counter.

“Where did you get these?” the shopkeeper asked.

“I made it,” Cal responded.

“I haven’t seen anything like these in years.”

“How much though?”

“Two-hundred for the clock, and fifty for the toy.”
            Cal smiled.  Of course he wouldn't sell that clock, but he would sell the toy.  And of course he could make so much more once he bought parts with that money.

“I have a proposition for you…” Cal began.

Author's Note

Reviews Welcome :)

Reviews

[Surya Mayim]

The idea of writing about a child who discovers the world and his place in the world by making clocks, and other random inventions from old clock parts is very original. The metaphorical implications about time are limitless. Offers the story a subtext that I identified right away. I don't know how aware you were of it, as often times subtextual themes manifest unconsciously while you're writing, but starting the story off by explaining the life cycle of the factory is a strong one for a story with this kind of subject matter. You tell us how a once robust industrial monolith had, over time, crumbled into disrepair. There are some interesting political/economic implications that arise too. I don't know how inclined you are to explore the implications of rising unemployment and rising social decay when factories fail in certain communities, but it could be an interesting way to add depth to the characters that you introduce in the following chapters. I assume this is a book, right? The ending was left 'to be continued...' so I presumed as much. Now, in terms of descriptions, I liked many passages. There was one paragraph I really enjoyed, when Cal wanders off, looking for a shortcut and gets lost. The setting you painted about the dusky lighting and the old derelict section of the city/town where he was wandering were very vivid. As a reader, I really like to know the place. It is probably more important for me than some, so I wanted to point out that your language for setting was strong when you utilized it. I always want more of that, so if you ever feel inclined you could probably add some strong passages towards the beginning of the story to draw us in. Often writers will introduce their MC right away, so that the reader can see the world through his or her POV. Like, for instance, if Cal were observing the old factory, the land around it, the views down the alleys, that would be a pretty effective way to give some flair to the introduction. That would also allow us to know what the story is about straight away, provide a hook. In many passages you give the reader a fabulous portal into Cal's mind. The sentence, 'Cal would say he came from a good home, he supposed...' is one of my favorite lines in the entire posting. Something like that, in the first paragraph, maybe even the first sentence, would grab my attention as a reader. Like I mentioned, I love the themes you construct around the factory as a symbol, but the story is not about the factory, it is about Cal. Cal has a relationship with the factory, in that it is an icon that delivers him from his childhood. At least that's what I suspect you are going for. At some point he mentions a reckoning with understanding his mortality. Awareness of death is powerful theme for stories about coming of age. So, given what, I presume, this story is about, or supposed to be about, the strongest choice to hook the reader is to tell us what this story is right away. All accomplished writers do this well. I like Stephen King's introductions quite a lot. The beginning of It, he writes, 'the horror wouldn't end for twenty years, if it ever ended at all.' The beginning of Carrie, he writes, 'Nobody was surprised when it happened, not in the depths of their minds they weren't, where dark thoughts reside.' I might be paraphrasing a little, I haven't read either book in a while, but you get the idea. Every good story has that hook that draws the reader in. Stephen King has plenty of company when it comes to writing strong introductions. Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my suggestion. You have an excellent, original idea, and it deserves the kind of beginning I think you can easily come up with. Don't misunderstand, you are a very competent writer. The story is all here, we just need to know what it is about. Like, can you distill this story down to one sentence? If you can then you're off and running. The other suggestions I would make are really about dressing it up a little. Maybe a better way to put it is, slow the story down a little. Some interactions with his family would help the reader also get to know him more. Give us more to mull over as we reader, a more textured characterization. You mention that his sister is almost not annoying. It would be nice to meet her, and his interactions with her. Also, how do her actions help or hinder his objective. Does she tell on him, thus keeping him from getting to the place he lived for? Does she discover his creations and break one? Possibilities are endless, I'm just throwing a couple out there off the top of my head. Basically, adding those ideas I suggested would make the story stronger. Personally, I think the story is about the infinite loneliness that a human being must reconcile. Time can make it seem less so, but everyone lives a life of quiet desperation. We fill our time, but it slips away regardless. Cal discovers the factory, learns these truths to be self-evident, overcomes his existential isolation by creating beauty from the destitution of that crumbling factory. Like I said, you have an inventive and spiritually timeless story. I look forward to reading any further revisions, should you so choose to do one, them. Be well friend...