The Zero Hour.

He brought me some warm tea. I think it was chamomile. Whatever it was, it hit the spot and warmed me up. It was nice after the chilly dark gray weather outside. Eo’s house was a modest dwelling, full of clocks and other timepieces that he apparently collected. Time, or the measurement of it, must have been very important to the people of this town – especially Eo.

“I see you really like clocks,” I announced.

“Well, I thought I did,” he mused. “It doesn’t seem to be that important anymore. I had amassed all of these things over the years, and then they suddenly all stopped, just like our town clock out there. It’s almost like the concept of time ceased to exist.”

Time…had ceased to be? The whole idea was interesting, but I didn’t at all think that could possibly happen. “What about day and night? Time controls those,” I insisted.

“I’ve not known a day nor a night since that happened. My world beyond this room is a permanent shade of dreary gray.”

This started to feel really weird to me. “Where am I?” I asked timidly.

“Vengi,” replied Eo. “It means frustration in Themetic. A pretty apt description, don’t you think?”

“Themetic,” I thought. Now where did I hear that before?

“Oddly enough, ‘vengi’ is also an ancient spelling of the Themetic word for ‘the passage of time.’”

“So is that what the big clock was for?” I asked.

“Subconsciously, it probably was,” he said. “I’m the one that pressed for it though, being Vengi’s civic engineer and all.”

I continued to sip my tea as Eo clued me in to more about what had happened.

“Time used to rule my life. I lived and worked by the clock. However, once that all vanished, along with the residents, I got discouraged. I didn’t know what to do with this place or myself.”

“Couldn’t you leave?” I wondered.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. You probably couldn’t tell when you were out there, but Vengi is isolated. We always have been. We’re surrounded on all sides by tall cliffs, the walls that have protected us for so long. The great wonder of our town was how we even came into existence in the first place.”

“Then where did everyone else go?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since it happened. I thought that maybe by fixing the clock out there, that I would somehow be able to rectify the situation. Maybe the residents would come back as well, but I could never get it working again. Honestly, I blamed myself. I – I had nothing left; I couldn’t figure out a solution so out of desperation, I hid in fear. I only came out of my house a few times after that.”

“C’mon,” I pleaded, “surely you can’t think something as out of control as that was your fault.”

“But it was! It was all my fault – my fault that the clock stopped, my fault that the people are gone, and it’s my fault that Vengi is in the state that it is today. All my efforts to understand or do anything about it are completely pointless!” he exclaimed.

At that point, I thought our conversation had transitioned from something that I could actually comprehend into something imaginary, like a bizarre existential test. “How did I even get here?” I asked myself. Part of me felt like I wasn’t really there, and it seemed strangely familiar – as if there was a similar experience before, almost like déjà vu. So, just going based on our conversation, I blurted out, “Why keep on living in the past, then?”

“What do you mean?” asked Eo.

“Well, you said that you’ve tried everything to fix the clock and restore Vengi to what it was, right?”

He nodded.

“So why not just accept that you’ve lost all that time, and dwelling on restoring it may be a lost cause?” I continued.

“What exactly are you saying?”

“I’m just saying that it might be more worthwhile to focus on yourself and what’s left of the town.”

“How’s that going so solve anything though?” he quizzically asked.

Eo was right, it wouldn’t necessarily solve anything, but maybe that wasn’t the point. “It probably won’t,” I told him, “but you might benefit in some way from the resources you do have left. Suppose you can’t make the town like it once was, but perhaps you can maintain what life you have here.”

Eo looked downward to contemplate that possibility. “You know, I never thought about that before.” Eo’s face quickly went from a look of despair to one of hope. “Hmm…you may be right. I guess I could—“

All of the sudden the walls began shaking violently, knocking several of Eo’s antique clocks off their mountings. However, Eo seemed to be more preoccupied with a different clock of his. “The tower!” he shouted, springing from his seat and running out the door. I went after him of course.

From the front steps of his house, I saw the clock tower rumble in the distance. The prolonged quake even shook the loosened bark from the scattered trees across the landscape. I ran as fast as I could in order to keep up with Eo’s fleet-footed strides.

When I reached the tower, I looked up just in time to see one of the face break off and fall toward us. I grabbed Eo out of the way right before the heavy mass destroyed one side of the fountain’s stone wall. The ensuing flood of old dirty, scummy water rushed at us, spilling over our tired feet.

As we backed up to watch the continued effect of the quake, the clock tower cracked and the chimes rang out an ear-splitting chaotic song. Bits and pieces of its façade feel away, and before long…so did everything else. The walls and what remained of the fountain below became chunks of scrap, serving up dust that clouded the air around us. When I looked back to Eo, he appeared to be in shock. His eyes were fixated on something exposed at the base of the clock. Once the shaking stopped, I cautiously approached the object of Eo’s stare. Pulling away bits and pieces of the rubble, I uncovered a large sundial that appeared as if it had not seen the light of day in ages.

“What is this?” I asked Eo, to which he didn’t respond. I think I knew the answer though. There were certain comments I took away from our earlier discussion. I remember him saying that it was his job to build the clock tower for the town. Eo must have been in charge of constructing the tower over the ancient sundial so Vengi’s townspeople could bury the past, but they couldn’t escape the desire to be ruled by time, and now I’ve tried to help Eo remove that idea from this perpetual dilemma they’ve faced since Vengi’s inception. “In short,” I thought to myself, “I brought this fate upon them.”

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