tourbillons + polaroids // e&c

[arx]

Ellington Spence

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i'd keep you safe, i'd keep you dry

don’t be afraid, Cedric

I'm working on a very tricky chronograph. It's a vintage timepiece, beyond beauty and intricacy—a tourbillon, an escapement, a linkage of gears and pendulums and springs in sizes thinner than a strand of hair, over 50 individual parts, and they were all trapped in a cage.

And apparently, the Capitol hadn't felt the need to jab a gun into the spine of a horologist closer to home. The shipping alone must be a fee only the richest could afford, only the most powerful had access to.

("Regular. Sir Geneva. Says he needs it in two weeks.")
("Yes, of course.")

There was no way I could get this done in anything less than a month. At least. And that was if my chamfers didn't turn to bevels as I squinted through my loupe by lamp light.

Or lose a hairspring while trying to perfectly replicate the Breguet overcoil; I haven't lost a spring as expensive as this in over 10 years now. I was a younger then. Son of an uxoricide, raised by my grandparents, primary caregiver to my them soon after. A dad suddenly surprise, in love and married all within a whirlwind of a pair—a couple—of years, a divorcée not long after, a rebel only if I'm being generous.

What sticks out most?

"He's perfect."

This will forever be my happiest memory.

I'm always and forever a- dad.. His dad.

So it makes sense that the spring disappears within the cracks of false drawers and—"Oh, shiiii-oot."—financial records best left hidden. So they won't cause papercuts.

I could probably start cursing again. Old habits.

"Shit."

But-

But this was something I'd forgotten through time—a piece of time, a timepiece—into my soul. And I had completely abandoned it, forgotten all about it. Lost it.

Maybe.

But-

I have to smile all the same, run a thumb over faded, scratched leather. I think about how much shoe polish the deep ruts across the surface will need to disappear, how the little cuts gave it character, but most clients coming to me weren't looking for that. They were looking for a delicate touch and a timid voice. All gears in their places, all ticks and tocks spaced perfectly.

"Hey," I call once softly, then knock and call again. "Hey, Cedric?" I knock with more force behind it, ask after him again. "Ced?" I hold the journal behind my back, repeat. "Cedric? Can I come in?" And I wait for him to give me permission.

He's taller than me now, though he isn't standing. I should've written down that memory in the journal I have tucked behind my back, too, while it was still fresh. I'm thankful the achievement is inked in fake wood trim by an overeager ballpoint pen. Even if it did mean a week of torment about just how short I am.

He lifts a headphone from his ear, legs crossed in his bed. His room keeps growing fuller and more distinct each time I see it. Which has been less often these days. I remember reading him bedtime stories, cramming into a bed far too small for three people, laughing until our lungs hurt, falling asleep with Poppy pressed against the wall and me clinging to them to make sure I didn't fall off the bed. Which I had done. Multiple times.

But he is grown up now. Or, at least, it sure feels that way.

I can hear it in his voice when he looks up at me, see it in his eyes that I've frightened him. This feels like an odd occurrence, proof I don't knock enough anymore. Maybe I don't talk enough anymore either.

"Hey, sorry, nothing is wrong, but-" I move further into his room, admire the way I can see how his art has grown over the years. "What, uh-" I cradle the leatherbound book of scrawled sweet nothings long forgotten in my lap as I sit at the edge of his bed. "What are you listening to?" That was dumb. Very lame. "Wait, never mind, I will just get to the point. I, uh, wanted to give you this."

"It's this sort of journal I tried to keep. For you. Though admittedly, I uh, didn't fill it all the way." I hand it to him with a small smile, one I could never grow tired of wearing while I was looking at him, a lucky witness to all he was becoming.

i'm the satellite

and you're the sky

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[ᴥ]

 CEDRIC SPENCE

There's a leak in my room. I've colored in ruined drywall with acrylic paint, and taken down the photos with calcified stains. Corroded copper settles in the wall like veins around a bone, the kind of problem we can't afford to acknowledge. I can make up for lost memories and I've learned that feathered stains make for convincing clouds. There is good to be found here, so I take all my anger and put it away. It has no place in my father's home.

Laying - no sprawling - out across the same bed I've had since I was small. Knees bent and draped over one another 'cause they don't fit like they used to. The springs dig into my back, shifting under flesh and muscle until my body is all distant aching. I don't normally sit still for so long but I'm a bit distracted at the moment.

Captivated, maybe.

The cassette player lays on my chest, rising and falling in tandem with my breaths. The wire of the headset has gotten tangled around itself, laying in loops up the column of my throat. Music slips through my fingers like smoke, no matter how I try to capture the sound it's gone as soon as the tape turns over.

"-ric? Can I come in?"

"Dad?" I push up on my elbows, freeing one ear from the bright foam of my headphones, "Is something wrong?"

Something's always wrong. Disguised in whispered conversation around tight smiles. When the lights go out and we play hide and seek with the coins in couch cushions. Or else it's another hard conversation to be had, ("things are gonna be changing around here, Ced, but that doesn't mean we don't love you very much.")

Dad's good at a lot of things, utmost, are excuses.

but he says it's nothing and my shoulders relax. Not all the way. I'm watching, wary, as I sit up.

"What're you listening to?"

I shove the tape under my pillow, "My friend-"

"Wait, never mind."

"Oh, yeah ok."

He sits on the edge of my bed, I wonder if I'm imagining the distance between us. It wasn't long ago that I'd have been tucked into his side, listening to some old fairy tale in a tome he got from his grandparents.

That was, of course, back before either of us knew we were wrapped up in more than one fantasy. I'd apologized to him through tears, the day after Mom told me. Feeling more than just a liar, like they were carved into my core. I'm made of them.

He said he already knew. I was his son, blood or not, he told me.

There he sits on the edge of the bed "I, uh, didn't fill it in all the way."

Gee, I wonder when he stopped.

I force a smile where I thumb through the pages. Loved, like I am.

Was?

The more moments wear into memories, the harder it is to be sure. There's these big gaps between 'i love you's'.

I snap the journal shut when the pages run blank. "This is nice, I can't wait to read it." and I can't help but add, "No life changing revelations in here, right? I've had enough for a lifetime." Tacked on to the end of my name, even, Mom had heard me complaining about that and it ended up another fight.

Most of our conversations bleed into arguments anyway.

I rub at the leather, smoothing over the scars worn by age. Sixteen fucking years of old wounds. "Nah, Mom's a better liar than you. Guess that's her job."