Chronophage and the Corpus Clock
Posted by E. G. Gauger
Dr. John Taylor was stunned when his plans for the Clock were accepted by the Corpus Christi College Cambridge Committee, appending to their enthusiastic fax that they would be delighted to match his own personal funding, of course. He ruffled through the pages on his workdesk again, marveling at the simple, serrated demonism of his opus. How he had managed to pitch it to the stodgy old boys at the CCCCC was baffling. He had fully expected months, maybe years of back and forth, funds and revocations, audits and blank stares. He had been willing to lay down those years on the altar of the thing. Its golden potentiality was all the faith he would need.
But now…now it would just be so easy.
It had come to him in a dream, of course. These things often do. Ticking, slavering, limping towards his paralyzed body at night. The distinguished inventor frightened a series of lithe, blonde lionhunters with his midnight screaming and clawing at the sheets, climbing up the headboard.
For months it wrung him out, until he began to listen to them. The smaller ones were too faint to hear, but larger beasts, the ones he supposed were leaders of smaller swarms, crept close enough to whisper. Dr. Taylor listened to this tinny susurrus. Make, they said. Build. Show. Blue and gold swam from them, and he struggled to stave off panic long enough for the colors to crystallize into plans, which poured from his fingers when he clambered to his desk at dawn.
From the minute it marred the page, it was easy. Calls were returned, proposals approved, hands shaken, cigars puffed. As if unseen claws rent the furrow ahead of him, before his plow could touch it. He glided through negotiations, and had no expectation that the final fabrication would be any different. It would be made. Seen. It would be adored.
And then, they would come.
Hawking unveils ‘strangest clock’ [BBC]
Categories: Aging, Art, Asteriskpunk, Time
Posted at 9:04 pm on September 20, 2008
9 Comments -
Wait…wait…so it is actually installed outside the library at Corpus Christi College?! I – I must go there. And steal it. And make it my own.
Mother of gods, please let them make miniature replicas for households. Please!
Comment by racerabbit — September 20, 2008 @ 11:52 pm
That clock does not tick according to the rules of this dimension. Its springs and wieghts are anchored in the Warp, beholden to the whims of daemons.
Comment by Laconic Youth — September 21, 2008 @ 3:42 am
That’s just fuckin’ wild. I totally want it for my apartment!
Comment by Oni — September 21, 2008 @ 11:00 am
It fills me with horror the likes of which no other item on this earth before, and possibly after, could.
Comment by Giania — September 21, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
I first saw inklings of this with headlines “Hawking to unveil new clock”
Hmm. Seriously?
When I saw this elsewhere last night, I was astonished. This is not the sort of thing that’s supposed to happen in the real world. In the real world, respected inventors do not make esoteric demonic clocks. They don’t make esoteric demonic clocks with the approval of Cambridge. And the MSM certainly doesn’t give proper coverage of esoteric demonic clocks that are also living historical lessons, and creepy and nihlist in philosophy.
Quite amazing.
Comment by Jeb — September 21, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
Has it yet been determined if this device can be used to align a space, such as a lab or temple, to the infernal realms?
At the very least, its nice to see time measured accurately. No two seconds are truly the same, and this critter reveals that.
Comment by Dee Bellwether — September 21, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
‘Incidentally the whole bank [of LEDs] uses only 60 watts.’
So, an equivalent of 530 incandecent blue watts?
Keen observers will take this as a good excuse to go into competition so that fine-structure emission in each dimension gives the exactitude to existence in her dimension she likes. And sell amain.
Comment by Steve Nordquist — September 21, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
This is the best thing I have ever seen.
I need one. Then the….machine….will…
be complete…
and I can return.
Comment by Sethferatu — September 22, 2008 @ 7:37 am
OMG! That was absolutely amazing! Very beautiful! A must have centerpiece in any living room…
Comment by eva — September 22, 2008 @ 8:00 am