The Water Clock

Chapter 3 of The Endless World

Greetings from the other side of the screen! I'm William White, and today I'll be presenting the third chapter of the Blurred Dimensions project.

If you haven't read the previous chapter, you can do so here.

If you want to read the next one,

In one breath, I will reveal to you what happened in the previous chapters. It all started with something unknown and frightening landing in Leonard's bedroom and ruining all his plans for the evening. Shortly after, two strangers arrived, who, without much effort, won his sincere dislike but, on the other hand, gained the sympathy of his daughter. In this part of the story, we are about to learn a little more about the mysterious goat and the world from which all this trouble comes…

The Water Clock

Chapter 3 of The Endless World

The next terrifyingly loud sound tore Leonard from his official duties. The fact that he had already heard it before didn't hinder him at all from jumping about an inch off the chair on which he was sitting. He looked at his watch and found that he had spent nearly three hours in his office.

He stood up and, despite his stiff legs, headed for the bedroom with quick steps. However, there was no one in the room, and besides, nothing much was happening there this time. The goat had begun to descend slightly, but the walls… ah, the walls were covered from end to end with drawings. From the most unrecognizable doodles, through different types of food and animals, to planets… and diagrams. In some of them, he recognized the stiff style of Handy, and in others, the well-known gentle strokes of Daisy. However, there was also a third type: very detailed and well-polished drawings. Although he found it hard to believe, this quiet and dark young man obviously saw things in a particularly beautiful way.

All the scribbles seemed to form one giant scheme. Arrows pointed from one incomprehensible image to another, mercilessly filling every empty space on the walls. This was already too much. He hurried toward the kitchen, but a moment before entering, he heard Daisy's clear laugh and her cheerful chatter.

“Pi’a,” Handy was trying to say, and that effort was written on his face.

She laughed again.

“Good… but try it like this: pizza.”

“Pi’a,” he strove again.

And it was one of the rare moments when Crabby's lips stretched into a smile.

“Is it time for food again?” Leonard finally appeared and pointed back to the bedroom and the fading sound of a hunting horn.

“No,” replied the daughter with her mouth full, “but I was hungry, and they couldn't refrain themselves. I ordered a pizza, and the aroma was irresistible.”

“Well, at least they have taste.”

“Actually,” she said after finally swallowing, “it was a signal to start work and…”

“Daisy,” Leonard interrupted her gently, “I'm so glad you three get along so well, but why do you keep scribbling on the walls?”

“I am sorry, Dad, but we understand each other best when drawing. There are so many interesting things to talk about. We made something like a basic dictionary. They even managed to learn a few words. Listen! Hey, boys, say hello!”

“Hi!”

“Hi!” said the young man, grinning from ear to ear.

“Do you see how receptive they are?”

“Lovely,” Leonard said skeptically.

“We'll repaint when we're done, I promise.”

“You promise? Wait a minute!” He was surprised. “By ‘we’ you mean you and these two, right? But you’ve barely met them. You don't know who they are, you don't know where they are from. The only thing that is certain about them is that they are some kind of absolutely unknown intruders, and you already…”

“That's exactly why I like them,” she cheered. “Everyone I know is boring or annoying… or both. But they are different, unknown, and so exciting! You can't imagine what I learned from them.”

“And for that thing there?” asked Leonard with hope.

“Yes, for that too. Actually, mainly for it.”

“Oh, come on then. Don't keep me in the dark.”

“Then listen!” She smiled to herself when the memory emerged. In the beginning, there was a lot of laughter when they realized that our planet is round. Then, the small detail that the sun is also round came to them as a shock. And finally the fact we revolve around it seemed to them completely absurd.”

“But why? How could a young man not know…?”

“Because,” she said with a mysterious smile, “it turns out that their world is a bit different.”

“Oh, here it starts again,” Leonard said with a sigh and theatrically rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he quickly wore an innocent expression. “Don't look at me like that. Go on. I am listening.”

“They have land under their feet, and they have sun too, but … come, I’ll show you.”

They crossed the living room and stood before the slice of strange geography in the bedroom.

“This is their world,” said Daisy.

“This?” said Leonard, and his left eyebrow curled.

“Yes,” said Daisy firmly before her father could say what he usually said in such situations. “This is just a slice of their helix world. I know it sounds crazy, but… look. Imagine one enormously long strip of land, slowly curved into a giant helix. At its center is their sun. But it's not like our giant ball of extremely hot gases. They explained it to me as a thick rope woven from thin strands of multicolored light. It must be incredibly beautiful,” she interjected dreamily. “Now, call to mind again this very long strip of land that is, I don't know exactly how much, but maybe tens of miles wide. The side nearer to the sun is a desert. You know, all that sand, heat, and wind that forms the dunes.

“Then follows the sea, right in the middle of the strip's width, and like an everlasting salt river, it extends along the entire length of that… strip-like land.

“On the other side of the salty waters, the climate is already quite different. It's not as hot there anymore. Everything is green. There are animals, birds, vegetable gardens, fruit gardens, and numerous rivers to water them. Further on, the weather gradually starts to cool down. The sun is finding it harder and harder to break through the clouds and fog that envelop the entire land. Gradually, dense forests give way to bare rocks and drifts of eternal snow. In this, the outermost end of the strip, the mountains and the endless

night rule…”

“Wow! How did you find out all these things? How did they manage to explain them to you?” asked Leonard unbelievingly.

“Well…” she pointed to the drawings on the wall.

“Oh, right,” he moaned. “Indeed. Here is this diagram, for example, which is so heavily scratched at one end that it is almost black. Lovely! A lot of paint will have to be invested to cover this dark spot.”

Then he seemed to suddenly make sense of what she had said.

“You mean,” he said, looking down at the glass tube and that fiery thing at the top, “that here in the innermost part of the helix is eternal day, don’t you? That there is no change between day and night?”

“Exactly!”

“Are you saying,” he continued, “that they have to walk from one end of the strip to the other to get laid?”

“Oh, Dad!”

His gaze again fell on Crabby, who once more approached the window and looked out… rather up to the sky than to the neighbor. Something was bothering him. As well as himself. He wanted to say that these were complete fabrications, but the excitement in his daughter's eyes stopped his words. He hadn't seen her like this in a long time. Maybe the boys, and the age, maybe the variety and the challenge were the reason for her vitality and enthusiasm.

“No need!” she said heatedly. “For them, day and night have completely different meanings.”

“And what is this?” Leonard asked to change the subject. His gaze was directed toward the ball of fire at the top of the glass tornado, while his hands tried to stay close to his back.

“This is the creator,” Daisy said confidently. “From it, the helix is born.”

“Oh, a very polished cosmology indeed,” he smiled at them. Handy also grinned and shouted, “Hi,” while Crabby was measuring him with a look.

“So they sent us this…” he thought for a moment, and for lack of a more precise word, said, “their globe, this model of their universe, so that we can better understand the arrangement of their world, right? Doesn't it seem a bit absurd to you…?”

“No,” she said with annoyance, “this is just a clock.”

“Ah, I knew it. It may not be ticking, but it will still explode at some point.”

“Dad! Calm down. It's just a watch,” she repeated in a firm and insistent tone, as if she were speaking to her little sister. “But not exactly like ours. The principle of operation of our watches is related to the rotation of the Earth around its axis. With day and night, with the seasons, and with us going around the sun for a specific amount of time. In their helix world, these things do not exist. But even so, they also need some kind of schedule to follow in their lives.

“Without exploding, right?”

“Without exploding,” she said soothingly. “You know, time to eat, time to rest...”

“Are you sure?”

“Dad! Please. They are not hostile at all…”

“Okay, okay,” he raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but inside he was screaming and seething. “Let me see: they don't have alternating days and nights, you say…” He couldn't calm down. “And that's why they just decided, ‘Let's make a clock to chirp for us to know when to get up from sleep and to slurp for us so we don't forget to eat.’ Am I right?”

“Dad! Stop being sarcastic! It was done, of course, in the most logical way possible. Listen! Just as in our deserts, so in theirs, people live. It even turned out that these were the most important people in their segment of the stripe.”

“Well, here too, the sheikhs live in the desert.”

“I couldn't quite figure it out, but they didn't seem to mean the richest. Anyway, there is no water in their desert, so they are entirely dependent on supplies from the opposite edge of the land strip. Now it's an automated process, but in the very distant, low past, as they say, specially trained people had to walk the distance from one edge to the other and back again to fetch ice to use for water and temperature balance in their homes.

“They set out with several mules, loaded with the empty saddles, through the hot sands and frequent sandstorms. The moment was marked by playing their ritual instrument, and that's why this sign now lights up on the clock and sounds loud drums.

“The moment when they reach the sea is marked by the sound of seagulls and the sharp, bright light that so startled you. In this way, people are notified that it is time for work. There, together with the mules, they boarded a wooden boat, took the oars in their strong arms, and, in calm or stormy weather, reached the opposite shore.

“The clock marks this with bagpipes. For the caravanners, the most peaceful part of the journey begins, and for the people, it is time to rest. As they enter the dense, dark woods, a hunting horn sounds.”

“And the last signal was the one we heard today at noon. The caravanners have reached the farthest point of their journey. Water has been procured. Life goes on.

“They stay there for very little time because they are on the edge of eternal darkness and cold. It's the place from where they cut the ice blocks, the same place where the goats and wolves are the masters, but above all, it is the place where they can meet the pests.”

“What are these pests?”

“I didn't understand. They are not very talkative on this subject. From here,” Daisy continued, “their return follows the same route to their native desert.

“This journey always took approximately the same amount of time, so it became the benchmark for measuring it. A very interesting fact is that, until this point, they only measured time with hourglasses, a type of sand clock.

“There, on the south wall,” the girl pointed, “do you see the sketch of what looks a lot like an antique market scale with a funnel at each end? There was a special position for a timekeeper, plus two apprentices, so that the process would not be interrupted when he rested. Sand had to be scooped up with a special bucket and poured into one of the funnels. The balance was broken and restored again when the sand flowed out through the small opening. A new charge followed on the opposite side, and so... several millennia. My brain just can't handle it.”

“Mine too,” said Leonard as he mentally tipped the scale, now in one direction, now in another, “millennia…”

“Endlessly boring,” said Daisy. “And maybe that's why caravanners have always been local heroes and role models. With the departure and return of the 'water caravans,' people checked their home routines. The appearance of the eternal travelers was always accompanied by crowds of children and shouts of joy.

“So,” Daisy concluded, “later, when the caravans stopped traveling, they decided to make this clock, and it came as a logical development of this periodicity.”

“Really exciting! A wonderful story,” said Leonard, keeping his eyes on Handy, who seemed to have already stopped exploring the thin crack in the ceiling and was now busily scrawling a diagram on the wall. “From everything I've heard so far,” he cleared his throat, “I get the impression that this… watch is very important to your world.”

“You are absolutely right,” confirmed the daughter. Leonard paused briefly to get their attention again and then said, as expressively as possible, “And how are they doing there without it now?”

He wasn't sure if the two youths understood anything from his question or if it was just that the tone and gestures were telling enough, but it was as though their faces suddenly lost their healthy color, and tiny beads of cold sweat broke out on their foreheads.

“Hmm, I thought so too. It looks like my problems will pale in comparison to yours. And…” Leonard stared at them, “In this regard, I think it would be most logical to ask the question: How did this watch actually end up here?”

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