The Man Who Sold Time

The old clock shop on Meridian Street had been there since before I was born, its dusty window display a graveyard of dead timepieces. The owner, Mr. Kessler, was a hunched, pale man with fingers like the hands of the clocks he repaired, thin and always moving. I used to deliver newspapers to his shop, and he’d always pay me with exact change, his eyes never meeting mine. When he died in the fall of 1982, the shop sat empty for months, the only remnant of his existence a faded sign reading ‘KESSLER’S TIME & REPAIR.’

The new tenant came in March. A woman, maybe in her forties, with sharp cheekbones and hair the color of rust. She called the place ‘Eternity Antiques,’ and filled the windows with not just clocks, but pocket watches, hourglasses, and sundials. The oddest thing was a large, ornate grandfather clock in the center, its face blank except for a single hand that spun counterclockwise, never stopping. She named herself simply ‘Madam Corsica,’ and she had a way of looking at you as if she were reading your last moment.

I was nineteen, working the graveyard shift at the all-night diner across the street. I’d watch her shop from the window, the warm glow of its lamps spilling onto the cracked pavement. One night, just before closing, she came in and ordered black coffee. She sat in the corner booth, by the window that faced her own shop, and she didn’t blink for what felt like a full minute.

‘You’re the paperboy,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.

‘Was,’ I said. ‘A long time ago.’

‘Do you remember the basement?’ She nodded toward her shop. ‘Underneath. The old cab company. They boarded it up when they closed in ’70.’

I did remember. As a kid, I’d dared to peek through the cracks in the wooden boards, seeing nothing but blackness. I remembered the stories: drivers who’d vanished, radios that picked up strange transmissions, a dispatcher who went mad and clawed at the concrete walls until his fingers bled.

‘Stay out of it,’ I said. ‘That place has been sealed for a reason.’

She smiled, and her teeth were too white, too perfect. ‘Oh, I’ve already been down there. It’s just the past. And I’m in the business of selling the past.’

I didn’t ask what she meant. I just took her cup and wiped the counter, watching as she left, leaving a single rose on the table. It was fresh, but it had a smell like decay.

A week later, I was closing up when I saw her light still on. I crossed the street, telling myself I was just being nosy, but my heart was thudding like the bass of a doom metal song. The door was unlocked. Inside, the clocks were all ticking in discordant rhythms, but the central grandfather clock had stopped, its hand reversed, pointing at a date: October 31, 1969.

I went down the stairs that were supposed to be sealed. The boards had been prised off, the door swung open. The basement was clean, but the walls were covered in chalk drawings of faces, many of them with eyes scratched out. In the center, underneath a single bare bulb, was an old office desk, and on it, a leather logbook.

I opened it. The first page had a list of names, dates, and times. The last entry, in shaky handwriting, read: ‘Driver #9. 11:58 PM. Dispatcher says: ‘He’s still in the car.’ Don’t open the door.’

The rest of the pages were blank.

I heard a sound from behind me, a low, guttural hum, like a motor running. I turned. The door to what had been the cab’s garage bay was slightly ajar. I pushed it open.

Inside, there was a 1968 Checker Marathon, covered in dust, its engine idling. In the driver’s seat sat a man, or what was left of one. His skin was like old leather, his eyes were missing, and his hands were fused to the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 positions. The radio crackled, and a voice, tinny and ancient, said: ‘Time to go.’

I ran, stumbling up the stairs, through the shop, out onto the street. I didn’t stop until I was in my apartment, doors locked, lights blazing. But I could still hear the ticking, and I could still smell that rose, and when I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I saw a face that wasn’t mine. It was the eyes of every person in that drawer, looking at me through my own pupils.

The next day, I saw the shop was closed, a ‘FOR LEASE’ sign in the window. The clocks were gone, but the grandfather clock was still there, its hand now spinning clockwise, faster and faster. I never went back. But sometimes, when I’m walking late at night, I pass that building, and I see the basement window, just a sliver of darkness, and I hear the hum of an engine, and I know that time isn’t linear, and that some doors should never be opened, and that the man who sold time was still waiting for his last fare.