THE TIMED CLOCK

А. E. van Vogt

Stanitsa Modern Short Story

stanitsa-kiev

Cover and book artwork by

Oksana Zdor

STANITSA-KIEV Ltd

160-a/87, Kharkovskoye shosse

Kiev, Ukraine 02091

e-mail: spt2109@gmail.com

www.stanitsa-kiev.com

ISBN 978-5-8218-0045-5 © Stanitsa-Kiev Ltd, 2025

‘Marriage,’ Terry Maynard will say when he’s feeling expansive, ‘is a sacred institution. I ought to know. I’ve been married twice, once back in 1905, and again in 1967. That kind of time interval gives a man perspective for a fair judgment.’

And having said that, he looks blandly over at his wife Joan. She sighed on this particular evening, lit a cigarette, leaned back, and murmured, ‘Terry, you mad daredevil, you. Again?’

She sipped at her cocktail, looked with guileless blue eyes at the visitors, and said, ‘Terry is going to tell you the story of our romance. If you’ve heard it before, you’ll find sandwiches and things in the dining room.’

Two men and a woman got up and walked out. Terry called after them: ‘People laughed at the atomic bomb ― till it dropped on them. One of these days, somebody is going to find out I’m not just romancing. That what I say happened did happen and that it could happen to them. When I think of the deadly potentialities, the atomic bomb will look like a sputtering candle.’

One of the men in the group that had remained said in a puzzled tone, ‘I don’t get that. What can your being married in 1905 as well as now have to do with the A-bomb — entirely aside from the annoyance your charming wife may feel at not being able to sink those long fingernails of hers into the fair skin of her ancient rival?’

‘Sir,’ said Terry, ‘you are speaking of my first wife ― may she rest in peace.’

‘She never will,’ said Joan Maynard. ‘Not if I can help it.’

But she settled herself comfortably. ‘Go on, Terry, darling,’ she said cozily.

‘When I was ten years old,’ began her husband, ‘I used to be fascinated by the old grandfather clock in the hall ― you can all look at it on your way out. One day, I opened the door at the bottom, and I was playing with the pendulum when I saw it was marked with numbers. They started near the top of the long bar, and the first number was 1840, and they went right down to the bottom, and the last number was 1970. That was in 1950, and I remember being surprised that the little indicator on the crystalline weight pointed exactly at 1950. I thought I had made a great discovery about how clocks worked. After I got over my excitement, I began, of course, to fool around with the weight, and I recall sliding it up to 1891.

‘At that moment, I had a dizzy spell. I let go of the weight and sagged to the floor, feeling quite ill. When I looked up, there was a strange woman, and everything around me looked different. You understand, it was only a matter of furniture and rug arrangement. This house has been in our family for well over a hundred years.

‘But at ten I was instantly scared, particularly when I saw this woman. She was about forty years old. She wore an old-fashioned long skirt, her lips were pressed into a thin line of anger, and she held a switch in her hand. As I climbed shakily to my feet, she spoke: “Joe Maynard, how many times have I told you to stay away from that clock?”

‘Her calling me Joe froze me. I didn’t know then that my grandfather’s name was Joseph. Another thing that held me was her accent. Her English was quite precise; I can’t describe it. The third thing that paralyzed me was that in a vague kind of way her face began to look familiar. It was the face of my great-grandmother, whose portrait hung in my father’s study.

‘Swish! The switch caught me on one leg. I dived past her and headed for the door, yowling. I heard her calling after me: “Joe Maynard, you wait till your father comes home― ”

‘Outside, I was in fantasia, a primitive world in a small town in the late 1800s. A dog yipped after me. There were horses on the street, a wooden sidewalk. I had been brought up to dodge automobiles and ride on buses. I couldn’t take the change. My mind is blank about the hours that went by. But it grew dark, and I sneaked back to the big house and peered through the only lighted window into the dining room. I saw a sight I’ll never forget.

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother sat at dinner with a boy my own age; and that boy was practically my living image except that he looked more frightened than I ever hope to be. Great-grandfather was speaking: I could hear him plainly through the glass, he was so angry:

‘ “That settles it. Practically calling your own mother a liar. I’ll take care of you after dinner.”

‘I guessed Joe was getting it for me. But all that really mattered was that they were not in the hall near the clock.

I sneaked into the house, trembling and without really having a plan. I tiptoed over to the clock, opened the clock case, and set the weight back to 1950. I did that without thinking. My mind was like a block of ice.

‘The next thing I knew, a man was yelling at me. A familiar voice. When I looked around, it was my own dad. “You young wretch,” he shouted, “I thought I told you to stay away from that clock.”

‘For once a licking was a relief. But I never as a boy went near the clock again. I did get to the point where I asked cautiously about my ancestors. Dad was very reticent. He’d get a faraway look in his eyes, and he’d say, “I don’t understand a lot of things about my childhood, son. I’ll tell you about it some day.”

‘He died suddenly of pneumonia when I was thirteen. It was a financial as well as emotional shock. Mother sold, among other things, the old grandfather clock; and we were thinking of transforming the old place into a rooming house, but a sudden industrial growth boomed the value of some land we had on the other side of town. I had been thinking about the old clock and about my experience, but what with college and then my stint in Vietnam I was what you might call a glorified office boy with the rank of captain I didn’t get a chance to look for it till early 1966. I traced it through the dealer who had bought it from us, and paid three times what we originally got for it, but of course it was worth it.

‘The weight on the pendulum had slipped down to 1966. The coincidence of that startled me. But more important, under a panel at the bottom I found a treasure: my grandfather’s diary.

‘The first entry was dated May 18, 1904. Kneeling there, grandfather’s diary in my hand, I naturally decided to make a test. Had my childhood experience been real, or had it been a delusion? I didn’t think then of actually arriving on