Uploaded Fairy: Dantino The King Quarterer

第8話 Epilogue 3 Mr. Clocktime Sees Hope In Vella

Though the whispers are only barely there, the sounds of rats remain in the sewers within the crawlspace below the city. Cries of the angels call out to one, and yet no creature is stirring. Whispers, nothing more. Mr. Clocktime exists in a kind of in between state; he is always watching you as he is everywhere, and yet exists nowhere on this Earth. Scarcely does anyone mention him by name, he is simply there under the glow of the Arsonist’s flame. His riddles are felt everywhere he goes, and yet as far as most hear no words are spoken. For he is the Grim Reaper, that other than Nadine, only those who are young may see. Vella had returned home to her parent’s apartment flat. It a run down joint no much larger than studio, yet the rent was always cheap due to the area they lived in. She wondered if the box was still under the couch where she had left it. Everything seemed to be back to normal; all of her friends parents were back in their homes. Vella was never one for sentimentality, and yet felt such to finally have a normal life again.

At night she would still have those nightmares, of a bald man in a black trench coat and black top hat. And yet as her special kind of insanity drew nearer by the night, she would follow various lessons plans from the man that she would recently only see in her dreams. It was a wonder to her if any of her friends remembered him after things went back to normal. After all, with a simple snap of his fingers anything could change in an instance. Only the memories remain with her, who had birthed the man to begin to with in the darkest reaches of her minds third eye. Whenever she would visit him, he would take her to various galaxies and universes that would have never dreamed to visit before. Most of which are uninhabitable to man, her existing in a kind of non time bubble. This would protect him from the powerful radiations from stars of various galaxies that would melt off her skin. Then she pops back into her own reality, and everything is back to normal again. And then down, down, down into the blankets she goes. And wakes up with only a faint memory of the past. She sails among the universe’s seas, avast! She would hear his voice calling, singing:

Am I the one that Seeth’s day,

A man who is born from disarray.

Am I the one that comes to roost,

Or the broomstick with a cook.

I shall go home to roost.

And thus that is how most days would close. For most people there would be a feeling of the utmost urgency, and yet for her there was none. He was not demonic, she shall never consult a nun. Instead, at least she thought at the time, all she had to do was steal her mother’s gun. Yet no matter the ill thoughts she may have while she is awake, she is always at peace in that sense of timelessness. For the man had this way with world that ended all fear. And yet he could easily overwhelm her with fear if he wanted to. He was simply to kind. Whenever she was in a bind, he would always be there. And he would offer to snap his fingers, and toss her bullies into the forth dimension. Yet Vella, despite her troubles with other girls her age, was as well always simply to kind. Because she knew that having someone guide her was power, and force not to be messed with. She go hop out of time in an instant, and hop right behind them. And toss a cosmic abomination at them, and then sweep them both out of time with a broom. Zoom, zoom, zoom out of time they went. Their frames crushing from explosion lit by flint.

Then the nightmares came again, and yet they felt especially real. Instead of the appearance of people, her friends and everyone she knew slowly become indescribable things–though not always completely. For some of them would have bat like wings, and elephant noses. Other would be long and wiggly, like big giant water hoses. These would be the snotty little kids she always knew, she always wanted to kick with her boots. Yet Mr. Clocktime had has catches, and she would be stuck within her witch’s boots. He knew that the more she used her outfit, the more this outfit would completely consume her, all of her life force and will. Everything about her would never be the same. So like the good father he is, always warned her not to use this outfit. Though he was not without faults, after all he amused himself by the thought of her being consumed by it. Watching her pop the bullies out of time, while dancing around like a music box girl doing the splits.

Thus as she woke up for the next coming morning, she waved goodbye in her usual way she always did.

And waited for father to come home.

For the midnight rooster to roost to the moonlight.

Closing of the night’s sonata.

She rode on her hover cycle down the broken down bridge to her apartment flat. In her backpack were various CDs with various Linux Distributions. The speed limit was only fifty five, and she went ninety. Zip, zip, zip down the roadway she went past various roads of corn fields outside of the larger city complex just down a few blocks. The merging of centuries has had lasting effects. The untainted forest of unknown creatures of the night made their homes in the same world as the world of prosthetic arm and eye enhancements and virtual reality. They would occasionally visit her neighbors, who would always be complaining about dark things in the night. She hung up her wooden clogs on the door, and went home to the fireplace and sat on the couch waiting for the evening’s dinner.

When she did not drive to school, she would ride various carts along the dirt roads when her little sister, and she would always had to reminds them to dust and wipe their clogs before going inside. She hopped off with them from the horse cart, and then tip her little black bowed straw hat and stare at the edges of the sunlight in the sky. It was a local field trip organized by their pastor, who was not wild about the current advances in technology. Indeed, ordinarily these technologies would only occur after the next one hundred years. Vella’s cousin Gella took out her phone, and text her pen pals that she had arrived.

Eventually the group was split up from the pastor. And thus they were lost within the corn maze. Until eventually Mr. Clocktime appear in the corn field, and offered to lead them in the direction of the pastor. He tap his cane gently into the mud, and finally they popped back to where the pastor was. ‘Girls, girls! Where have you been? Now I have wrinkles on my chin.’ said the pastor, and thus this ended their field this section of the field trip.

Mr. Clocktime was bored with mostly spending time in the city. After all the local fare of seafood was only so much to bare. The occasionally gourmet pizza he would buy from various restaurants were always nice, yet even these would gradually become old for him. Thus it was the following night that he would see Vella again, and thus would be another adventure, though he had to resist the fact that it was in fact training for something else later that would determine her own ability to survive the collapse of the universe. After all, all it would take would be a wish from Vella that can restore humanity’s place on the planet, and thus restore Mr. Clocktime’s ability to be entertained.

His humor was rather profane, he had a shit load of giggles from watching Volcano’s explode, and watching ancient buildings from begone eras fall down and implode. Why watch explosion on film, when you can be right there and watch the events unfold at any time of history you want. It was a cold night, and he regretted the thinness of his leather trench coat. And he felt that the color was simply to dark for the occasion, though his black sunglasses and top hat would be just fine. But so much black he wore, and the night was never so dark. In fact the night time was just dark enough to hallucinate vile things in the night.

That evening he visited Vella in a dream. In this dream he gave he one wish to fulfill, for he could only only cause mischief with an ill informed wish. But this was some deeper attachment to her. For she was different from the other adventurers that had he met before in his eons of life. Vella looked just like Nadine, who had defeated Dantino twenty years before. Nadine was of the old guard in a reality that only we may know. She was the cause of the birth of the duality of centuries, and thus also born him. Despite his nature for mischief, he was always a kind of secret adulterous affair from Ellen and Millie.

Vella made he wish against all other wishes.

And thus all the adults were gone, except him.

Vella arrived at school, and noted that while all her friends were there at the door, there were no adults to be found. This would spin their sense all around, and make them hop gigs if they could hope gigs. Tap dancing on one of their friends was big enough to carry an entire dog pounds. They would roll along the playground, and grind with their Tennis shoes on the monkey bar railings, and then hop back on the boy and continue rolling up the mountain. But Vella herself had grown concerned by the absence of their parents, despite the others good time. Thus she hop off the boy, and ran to Mr. Clocktime carefully avoiding being ran over, because by comparison she was much shorter than all the rest. At her friends behest, “I don’t wish to be away from my mom, I want all the adults to be home again.”

“Indeed Vella, a good daughter you are.” said Mr. Clocktime. And with a snap of his cane on to the parking lot road, sent time backwards. Until eventually Vella was back in bed, and all the adults were back in the world again.

Then he hopped out of time.