At five fifty-nine, Bo rang the station bell.
At five fifty-nine, Bo rang the station bell again.
The second time, he was sure he had already rung it. He still had the blister on his finger from the first pull.
“What did the clock say to the calendar?” asked a voice above him.
Bo looked up. Tempus sat on the station clock, swinging two thin legs over its face.
“I don’t know.”
“Your days are numbered.”
Bo waited.
“That’s the joke,” Tempus said.
The minute hand moved toward six. Then Tempus flicked it back to five fifty-nine.
The bell rope jerked and rang by itself.
Bo had thirty minutes to reach his daughter’s school play. His shift ended at six. Her solo began at six twenty-five. The walk to the theater took twenty minutes, if he didn’t stop for food.
He looked at his lunch box. He had already decided not to stop.
The station clock stood on a wheeled frame, inside a blue ring painted on the floor. The ring marked Tempus’s small home. Its power worked only on the clock inside that circle. Bo knew the rule from the sign on the clock stand. He had thought it described a harmless station attraction.
It could turn the hand back one minute. It could not turn people or objects back with it.
The tea on Bo’s desk kept cooling. The blister kept hurting. The train doors waited for the six o’clock signal, which never came.
Tempus repeated the joke.
“I heard it,” Bo said.
“You didn’t laugh.”
“I’ve got somewhere to be.”
“So have they.” Tempus pointed to the passengers waiting beside the train. “A splendid audience.”
The hand jumped back.
Driver Len walked in from the platform. Her pocket watch said six oh-three. Trains on the line used their own clocks; only the station doors obeyed Tempus’s clock.
“Open the service exit,” Len said. “I’ll take them around to the other train door. It has a manual latch.”
Bo reached for the exit key. Then he looked up at Tempus.
“Could you give me another minute after they leave?”
“Certainly. I have a very good minute.”
If the station could stay at five fifty-nine, perhaps Bo would finish without being late. He knew that wasn’t how the rule worked. Still, the hand waited there so neatly. His daughter’s message lay on his desk: Front row if you can.
“Just let it reach six once,” he told Tempus. “Then you can have your minute.”
Tempus rubbed its chin.
“One proper laugh first.”
Bo gave a laugh that sounded like a broken door hinge.
“That won’t do,” Tempus said, and reset the clock.
Three more passengers came into the station. Bo waved them toward the closed train doors while he tried a better laugh. A woman with a parcel asked whether the train had been cancelled.
“A short delay,” he said.
Len put her watch on his desk. It said six oh-eight.
“Your minute doesn’t reach the theater,” she said. “Every time you bargain, we wait longer.”
The woman shifted her parcel to her other arm. A man sat down beside his case. He had kept them waiting.
He took the key.
“Service exit,” he called. “Follow Len. We’ll use the other train door.”
Tempus began its joke as Bo opened the side door. Len walked the passengers along the marked path outside the blue ring. The being could reset the hand, but it could not pull them back.
“You’re taking my audience,” it complained.
“They bought tickets for a train.”
The woman with the parcel laughed at that. Tempus looked hurt.
Bo escorted the last passenger, the man with the heavy case. He helped him down the two steps and onto Len’s train. Len checked that everyone was seated, then closed the manual door.
“Go,” she told Bo. “I’ve got this.”
He returned to the station. Tempus had reached the calendar part again.
Bo released the brakes on the clock stand.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving the clock.”
“I live here.”
“You can stay. The clock has work.”
He pushed the stand across the blue line. The wheels caught on a crack, and he pushed harder. Once the clock was outside the ring, the hand moved past six without jumping back.
Tempus remained inside the circle. Its feet rested on the floor now. It looked much smaller without the clock beneath it.
“There ought to be a second joke,” Bo said, catching his breath.
“This one is perfect.”
“Then let someone hear it once.”
He put his lunch box in his bag and locked the public doors. The station remained lit for the cleaner, who had her own key. Outside, the train was pulling away.
Bo reached the theater at six thirty-four.
Through the small window in the door, he saw children crossing the stage with paper trees. His daughter Mira stood at the side, waiting to carry one off. Her solo had finished.
He waited for a break before slipping into a seat near the back. He saw the final scene. He clapped when the curtain came down, and stayed while parents crowded toward the stage.
Mira found him by the chairs.
“Did you hear me?”
He had an entire story ready about a being on a clock. None of it would make him hear the song.
“I missed your solo,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She folded her program into a small square.
“I looked.”
“I know.”
She gave him the program. “Keep that. We’re putting the chairs away.”
He set his bag down and began stacking chairs beside her. She told him which ones belonged on the tall cart. He did as she asked.
Back at the station, the cleaner swept up to the blue ring.
“What did the clock say to the calendar?” Tempus asked.
“Don’t know,” she said.
It told her.
She snorted once and carried on sweeping. Tempus opened its mouth, then shut it. The clock, beyond the ring, ticked into another minute.
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