Calliope-Jayne and the Clockworks

On the morning after all of his memories had escaped out through the crack in his head, The Inventor awoke to find that he had nothing but the clock tower, the clothes on his back, and the strange notion that he’d been inventing something of great importance. It was that feeling lodged in his skull like a bullet that sent him rifling through his papers with reckless abandon he didn’t believe himself capable of, estranged to the work that had colored his twenty-three or so years of life, trying to recall exactly how he had tried to change the world. The unfortunate reality of the situation though, was that his memories had seemingly taken a permanent holiday. He’d hidden his plans somewhere no crook could find them and now couldn’t find them himself. Instead he was met with the unforgiving faces of one million questions. And when the answers didn’t present themselves within the hour, on a whim, Calliope-Jayne was the first thing he built.

Somehow, out of the gears, springs, nuts and bolts he’d buried himself in, he built a girl. She was a designer distraction, meant to numb the sting of knowing that he and his magnum opus were now complete strangers. Calliope-Jayne was the unexpected artifact of the pieces of the clock tower, which had seemingly stopped ticking out the time years ago. And though it was a key in her back that kept her heart ticking, she was capable of as much thought as he was, proving to the willing ghosts of the tower that The Inventor was indeed a genius.

She fell into the rhythm of his life, sporadic and syncopated, the ticking of her key and her giggle that sounded like clock bells becoming the symphony that held up the moon and sun and hung the stars in the sky. Calliope became nothing short of The Inventor’s best friend.

They lived in perfect symmetry for many months, whiling away the hours before her key ticked out and the tower was overcome by a silence like death, save for the loose floorboards crying out. It wasn’t until he wound it up again that the music continued. He would try to shatter the glass wall between himself and his memories and she would ask as many questions as there were stars in the sky. They lived in the synchronicity of recently arriving in their own lives, relying on one another like oxygen. He had no life before her and she had no life before him.

The sun did eventually rise on a day when The Inventor was struck with something he recognized as the memory of his great invention as if it were lightning.

“A machine that can change lives.” He said, running up the stairs, a sound that sent a butterfly loose in Calliope’s stomach, and into the clockworks. She sat in her usual place, silhouetted against the northern face, twirling a gear in her arm. She looked up at the sound of his voice, a wry yet blissful smile finding its place on her lips at the sight of him, shifting his weight on a loose floorboard.

“That’s awfully vague.” She replied. He was already at his desk, fervently scrawling notes across pages, running his fingers through his hair. What a strange creature he was to observe.

“I’ve done it. I’ve done it, I’ve remembered!” He laughed to himself, lapsing into the voice of a madman. Calliope couldn’t help but note how beautifully he wore his own joy. She found herself laughing along as the waterfall of his speech washed over the room. “This is wonderful! This is...the best day of my life! This is what I was meant to do. I know it.”

“You know better than to be this vague with me! Tell me then,  how does this machine change lives?” Calliope asked, voice playful, pulling up a stool beside him and leaning her elbows on the edge of the desk. The Inventor was overcome by a proud, crooked grin.

“This machine can store memories.” He held Calliope’s bright-eyed gaze for a moment before springing into action, rummaging through his desk fervently. “One that can take your thoughts and record them. Imagine that! It’s got to be able to adjust to each memory it takes in. Which means the first thing I need is a simple spur gear...Which I’m not sure I have anymore. I’ve just about exhausted the clockworks…” The minutes washed over one another, collapsing and dying on the floor, waiting to be swept away. He wouldn’t find what he was looking for. Calliope watched him ransack his desk and move on to the clockworks, a decision mulling in her mind.

“I have one right here. In my hand.” The Inventor poked his head around the corner, an eyebrow raised.

“I couldn’t take that, Calliope. There’s no way a clock could function without a full set, it’s vital to the-” Calliope raised a hand, silencing him with a somewhat proud grin.

“I am not a clock.” And with that she gritted her teeth and ripped the gear from her palm, knowing that The Inventor’s joy was worth more to her than gold or the use of her hand. “Here.” The Inventor accepted the gear with gentle hands, looking down on it as if it were a diamond.

“Thank you, Calliope-Jayne. I won’t soon forget this.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head softly and returned to his work, leaving a smile on her lips that would last her until her key ticked out.

In the cycles of the moon that followed, The Inventor allowed his memory machine to swallow him whole while Calliope grew accustomed to a life without the use of her left hand. It was in the second week that she gave him the gear set in her shoulder, relinquishing the movement of her entire left arm to him. And when he protested that a clock would surely wind out without one, she again reminded him: I am not a clock.  He again thanked her with a kiss on her forehead and in her pain, she felt nothing but joy, knowing that she’d made someone she loved more than anything, extremely happy.

Calliope’s donations to The Inventor’s great creation became more and more generous as time ticked on. A gear here, a wire there. I am not a clock. I am not a clock. Soon she had learned to function without the use of an arm, half of the metal casing on her forehead, an ankle, a knee, or a swiveling waist. Each day passed in a flurry of nearly unbearable pain, yet she was met with his thanksgiving each time, and that bliss-drenched grin and the far off notion that she was just a hair closer to her Inventor. From sunrise to sunset, she would sit beside him at his work table and watch him drain his heart and soul into that machine. It was the least she could do.

The Machine began to take shape, an odd looking thing that seemed to know it was going to change the world, even in its stillness. As it became more and more complete, The Inventor became more and more scarce around the clock tower. Upon realizing that he possessed no power source to function as a brain for his contraption, he’d gone out into the world to search for something the clockworks couldn’t give him. Calliope was left to wait in the clock tower, content in her agony, knowing that if she were to go out into the world, her key would surely tick out in a matter of hours and she’d be swept up in some foreign crowd. She could not keep up with him. It was one of the many impossibilities that she existed with. A worthless risk. In the tower she had the security of knowing that The Inventor would come back to find her, key ticked out, a powerless design, only to wind her up once again.

In those lonely nights, the hours stretched before her like oceans. She found comfort in The Machine itself, inspecting it, trying to figure out exactly how The Inventor was going to change lives with such a strange little thing that couldn’t even hold a conversation. In The Machine she saw herself. Her gears, springs and wires bent out of their original shapes, and nearly felt a pang of sadness knowing that she could never have them back. Jealousy nearly crashed down over her head as her mind ran in circles around the concept of the Machine. All it lacked was a power source, and yet it would never be as complete as she had once been. A power source. Much like the one that kept her alive. A chill ran through her body at the idea of another sacrifice knocking at her door. It cut like a knife, but that was the sacrifice she was not willing to make. She wanted to live to see The Inventor’s smile he always had saved for her once more. There was no one she loved more.

“I am like him.” Calliope reminded the Machine silhouetted against the south face. “You are not.”

There came a day, though, when he no longer smiled for her. His search for a power source had lead him to a variety of people, The Woman being the one he’d learned to rely on like oxygen.

She was beautiful and had a laugh that sounded like church bells. She didn’t tick. The Woman was not a clock and did not have a key in her back. When The Inventor introduced her, he referred to her as ‘The woman I love’ and in response, Calliope wore a broken, suffocating smile and shook her hand, feeling a pain more intense than ripping any gear from her arm. The dialogue she shared with herself was more morose than the floorboard that cried out under her step. She is like him. You are not.

The moon hung in the sky and The Inventor and The Woman were swept up by the outside world again, Calliope-Jayne made her decision. When the cold light of dawn swept over the tower, The Inventor’s great machine would be alive to meet it.

On the morning after her laugh like clock bells had escaped into the clockworks , The Inventor returned to find that she had torn her very life source out of her back and given him the final piece to his great machine. His hands shook and he felt something far from the joy he had expected. The feeling of her cold metal hands in his sent daggers over his skin and iron through his heart, for Calliope-Jayne was not a clock and never had been. It was this feeling that sent him whirling through the clock tower with reckless abandon that he now relied on like oxygen, searching for some solace that didn’t exist. In her wake, Calliope-Jayne had left him nothing but his Machine, the Woman he loved, and a silence like death.

It was when he stumbled upon that loose floorboard behind the clockworks that a memory came spiraling back to him like a dove in his sleeve, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in months. He wasted no time ripping it up, remembering how clever he’d thought himself to be, hiding the plans for his great invention there, somewhere no crook could find them. As the unforgiving light of morning filtered through the clock face, he was reunited with his attempt to change the world, his great invention. A sketch of a girl he’d called ‘Calliope-Jayne.’