There's an amazing junk shop on Hawthorne. Immediately upon entering, you're overcome by the sweet dusty smell of aged, once-loved things. Racks of stiff, outlandish clothes create a crushing maze when you walk through the door, and after you've tried some on and imagined yourself a sultry songstress, a
(more) flirty flapper, a honeyed housewife, silvered, spotted mirrors greet you with dazed expressions. Pose in front of them, then pass beyond to shelves of dented banjos, guitars with snapped strings, drums with dirty, translucent skins sagging in the middle. Flip through the bin of slippery records around the corner. A million unknown bands and singers and dreamers. Behind you, a doorway into the room at the very back of this warren of other people's memories beckons you with with a square of dim sunlight, warming undisturbed dust. Go on. Go in.
Clocks. Huge clocks hanging on or propped against the wall, their ticking slow as Ent's speech. Regal grandfather clocks standing at attention with pendulums stilled. Mantle clocks, ticking away in worried voices. Tiny clocks, in clusters on shelves, speaking softly about all the smallest moments of their days. The lines on the face of each one in a different place.
The hands of the clocks move continually, imperceptibly, toward and away from each other. Alone in this whispering room, you are standing on the face of your very own clock, at the center where the hands are forever joined. You are the pin that holds the two realities of your life together - the time before this moment, and the time after this moment. The hands of the clock are roads, the one behind you changing in relation to the direction of the one in front of you. In the center, in you, all things are and always were possible. (less)
