legends · 4 min read ·
Bench Ticket
A clockmaker repairs a carriage clock that stops every night at 23:58, and finds who is holding the minute open.
**Hallin & Partner, Clockmakers — Bench Tickets (Repairer: V. Hallin)**
**Ticket 311 · Longcase clock (Thomas Lees, Manchester, c.1790) · Customer: Mrs. Okoro**
Complaint: Stops at night. Work: cleaned movement, new suspension spring, oiled. Tested seven days. Keeping time to ±10 seconds a week. Collected.
**Ticket 312 · Mantel clock (French, 8-day, 1890s) · Customer: Mr. Pike**
Complaint: Chime wrong. Work: reset strike count. Collected.
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**Ticket 313 · Carriage clock (Dent, c.1870) · Customer: Mr. D. Pryce**
Complaint: "Stops at 23:58, every night, and nothing will make it go on."
Bench notes: Clock arrived wound and running. Showed correct time (14:20). Left it on the bench. Checked at 18:00: running. Checked at 23:00: running. At 23:58 the clock stopped. The balance wheel stood still. The hands rested at 23:58. I tried the winder: wound, fully. I tapped the case. Nothing.
At 00:30 I looked again. It was running, and the hands read 00:30. It had not stopped. It had not lost a minute. It simply jumped forward from 23:58 to 00:30, like a film with a cut. I checked my own watch. 00:30.
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**Bench notes, ticket 313 (continued)**
Opened the movement and checked every wheel. The escapement is perfect. The mainspring is sound. There is nothing in the works to cause a stop. I have fitted a new balance staff and a new pallet. I have cleaned and oiled every pivot. Still it stops at 23:58.
Not just on the bench. The shop clock above the door stopped, once, at 23:58. The wall clocks in the workshop did the same, all nineteen. My wristwatch showed 23:58 for a long while. My phone said 23:58. They all stood together, to the second, as if a hand had been laid on all of them, for what I now estimate was thirty-two minutes.
When they ran on, there was no gap. The thirty-two minutes were simply missing.
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**Ticket 314 · Wall clock (Vienna regulator, c.1900) · Customer: Ms. A. Tran**
Complaint: "Loses time." Work: adjusted pendulum. Collected.
**Ticket 313 note (V. Hallin, 20 Oct)**
I took the Dent clock home. I put it on the mantel in the front room and sat with it. I watched the hands go round. At 23:57 I held my breath.
At 23:58 the room changed. I have no better way to say it. The sounds of the house ceased. The refrigerator stopped. The streetlamp outside shut off. The air stood still, as in a held photograph. In the dark, the carriage clock ticked, and the only other sound was a tiny click, from somewhere above the ceiling, of a catch being drawn back.
I looked up. There was a line of light under the attic hatch.
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**Ticket 313 note (V. Hallin, 24 Oct)**
My father taught me the trade. He used to say that a clock does not tell time. It apportions it. It measures out the minutes so that they come in order, and nothing is lost between them. He said: "There is a minute that is not in any clock. The minute after twenty-three fifty-eight. The one you can't see."
He died on a Wednesday at 23:58. I was in the room. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was stopped.
I did not think of it until now.
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**Ticket 313 note (V. Hallin, 30 Oct)**
I have fitted a plain glass back to the carriage clock so that I may watch the movement. At 23:57 I sat down at the bench with a loupe. At 23:58 the balance stopped. The hands stood. And then, in the glass, in the space between the escape wheel and the pallets, I saw it.
A very small figure. The size of a mite on a hairspring. It was standing on the pallet fork with one foot on each arm, holding both, as a man holds a gate. It was my father. He was in his shirtsleeves. He was holding the fork very still. He was holding the minute open.
He looked up at me through the glass. He put a finger to his lips.
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**Ticket 313 — final**
Clock returned to the customer, running, keeping excellent time. Charge: £0. No further work.
*Note: on 31 October I collected the shop clock above the door. It stopped at 23:58, as before. I went to the bench. I took the loupe. I looked into the clock's works. On the pallet fork there was a small figure, standing very still, in shirtsleeves. It looked up at me. It held out one arm, palm up, and moved over a little, to make room.*