Clockwork

A new dawn breaks in the clock tower of Sternburgh and marks the beginning of a new workday for its only inhabitant. The same mantra every day, the same rituals. Wake up with the sun, open the window and let in the hustle and bustle of the city, rub the sleep out of your eyes.

Every morning looks a lot like the preceding. Stand in front of the window, watch the busy people of Sternburgh and their insignificant pursuits, while brushing through your long, snow-white hair. A quick view over the city before she would see to her work.

It is the same rhythm always. On the way to the washroom weave your hair into a lax braid and remember all that is important. 

As far back as she can think she has been following this rhythm rigorously. Though, of course, she does not recall a lot of things far back.

"Your name is Lilia Temperali." She smiles at herself in the mirror encouragingly, holding eye contact with the pale young woman blinking back. She forces herself not to take hint from any of the many cheat sheets she has put up on the mirror over time to remember.

"You are the Keeper of Time." Throughout the last year, she has been adding a disproportionate amount of paper to the mirror.

"The Keeper of Sternburgh." A lot of things have stirred up her rhythm in the last year, and a person she does not want to forget.

"Your work is important." But here already are the limits of her memory. Her head is filled with many lives, many stories, but not her own. The work is important, the people are important, everything else is being erased from her mind every night.

Lilia takes a deep breath of air. It tastes like parchment and oil paints mingling with the smell of fire and steel. It reminds her of what is important to her not to the people she serves. She tends to forget that sometimes.

Her gaze twitches up towards a note adorned with a small painting. You love her, the tight, curved letters assure her. Lilia’s thoughts are scorching.

The recurring visits of a woman have broken into her routine the past year, and Lilia? Lilia has fallen for her, learned to love.

However, she does not recognize the face on the portrait now, which she undoubtedly drew herself. The pitch-black curls that stand in all directions, the dark eyes, the teasing grin. A small clock with black hands in front of a white dial dangles from a silver necklace laying around her neck. None of this makes sense now.

Kaelsha, the note adds.

Searching her subconscious for a spark of recognition, something that could justify these notes, Lilia lets her shoulders drop wistfully. There was nothing. Lilia wishes she could grieve. But she felt nothing for that person. Kaelsha was no one to her.

She breathes deeply, sorts her thoughts, and gathers herself. An urge inside her grows to sit down at her desk and browse through her diary in search of answers, but there is no time for that. Work does not wait.

So instead, she returns to the window, takes a last breath of city air and thus the thoughts of the people before she shuts out the world for the rest of the day. After following a spiral staircase to the bottom floor of her tower, she takes the door to her right and sits down at her workplace for the next twelve hours until the sun sets again.

It is a dark workshop illuminated by the flickering light of many candles. Lilia does not mind the gloom. The gentle movements of the flames and the even ticking of countless clocks on the ceiling high shelves allow her to slide into a trance that lets time fly.

As every morning, she first walks through the rows of clocks with a rag removing dust and rust from them where needed and taking care of those who have stopped ticking. Lilia knows the names and life stories for every clock, after all, she has forged each one herself and cared for them her whole life. They all have individual personalities, some are small pocket watches, others attention seeking cuckoo clocks, some are inconspicuous and unadorned, others decorated with golden ornaments and colorful gemstones. She even had a grandfather clock that struck loud every hour. Lilia takes every one of them in her hand, drives the rag over it captivating the pictures and lifetime the people gave her.

Every day for the past year she has been stumbling over an empty space in the shelf. A piece of parchment takes up the place instead of its rightful clock. Kaelsha, is written on it.

Lilia thinks back to the painting of the woman and the clock with the black hands.

As every morning, she gets distracted by this piece of parchment and rushes up the stairs to rummage in her littered bookshelves for the diary that she has camouflaged there in case unwanted souls would try to probe into her privacy.

She skims over the entries that capture her entire life. Every morning she would wake up, go to work, and spend every remaining hour of the evenings reading books about what humans believe is science, drawing the view from her only window and writing stories that no one would ever read. She flies over all this seeking a name between all the words she puts on paper every day. Kaelsha.

And she finds the name. Often. Every Sunday the pages were full of that name. Every Sunday, the entries rhapsodize about this person, of whom Lilia has no memories, about her empathetic eyes, her loud laughter and about her optimistic view on humans’ dull lives. One day this woman wants to become a dancer, a dancer in a theatre, to make people marvel and forget for a moment. Kaelsha has read her stories, she has seen her paintings and loves her commentaries on the many books in her shelf. Lilia wishes it, she wishes to be able to share the emotions from the diary, but to her they are but empty words. She feels nothing for this woman.

She smiles sadly. There are more important jobs and tasks anyway on which she must concentrate. It is probably better if Kaelsha does not deprive more of her attention. And she really should take up these tasks again finally. She has already wasted far too much time on this nonsense, which she cannot afford.

Before she goes down, however, she looks at yesterday’s entry. A Sunday. Although she keeps persuading herself that she feels nothing for Kaelsha, the walls and the shadows are suddenly closing in on her as she reads. Kaelsha did not come.

Why then do these words hurt so much?

Lilia thinks back to Kaelsha's clock. There is no way of reaching the thoughts of the woman. She has given away that opportunity, placed it around her neck and why? Who is she, that you confide so much in her, asks a voice inside her head.

This afternoon, Lilia sits down at her workplace to forge her own clock. A wristwatch with white hands and a black dial, which she puts on before opening the seven locks of the towers' door and stepping into the night. It is cold and the few people still awake turn around in astonishment at Lilia’s appearance. The door of the tower has never stood open before.

Whether she is looking for Kaelsha or just wants to bring her clock home, she does not know yet. Either way, from now on she would be taking on a life of her own.