Draft 2019.03.28

What upset Alice the most was her realization that it mattered in all the ways that it should not have mattered. The realization also marked the moment she simultaneously understood herself to be in love.

It consumed her the more she reminded herself that this was “normal” – that love was as rationally irrational as they say. That it was normal to obsess about every interaction that could have or could not have been made better or worse (in every possible sense of the meaning) by adding or subtracting that person from the situation.

And now, that love had brought her here: looking for a solution to her endless fear of living with the uncertainty of whether or not she wanted to continue this purgatorial imprisonment of the mind, held captive by runaway thoughts with no end in sight.

But Alice knew, of course. She knew the solution. She very well did.

“And…that’s what made you insist I enter your limousine?” asked her somewhat bemused audience, who had patiently waited for Alice to finish telling her story.

“Yes!” Alice smiled at him. “After all, you’re the person I feel that can help me.”

“…I see,” was the reply as he gently twirled the thin golden chain that hung from his breast-pocket. “It’s been quite some time since someone was this compelled enough to find me without any other leads,” the man said, almost to himself. “Was this your doing?”

Alice looked from the man to the chain, wondering if he was talking to himself, or whether or not the question was directed at her. But having finally found someone who she was convinced could help her, she couldn’t contain herself. “The…urge to talk to you was compelling. So, who are you?”

She waited impatiently as he slowly pulled on the golden chain and revealed a golden pocket watch danging on the other hand, then depressed the crown so that the cover flipped open. “It’s four thirty in the afternoon, if you have some place to be. But you are my guest, and if you can help me with what I want, I will ensure that you are paid handsomely for your services, so much that any prior engagement you had is —”

Winding the pocket watch slowly, the man smiled at her. “Slow down, miss. I’m quite sure you’re used to getting your way throughout your life. Alice, was it?”

Alice frowned, not used to being interrupted. She wasn’t sure if she had already given him her name yet, having launched into her story almost as soon as she had made her bodyguards pull this man from the sidewalk into her limousine.

But remembering her manners, Alice forced herself to ask as well. “And your name is…Mister…?”

“Kolo. You may call me Kolo.” the man replied, settling back in his seat.

But Alice barely registered it. All that mattered in this moment of all moments was whether or not this Kolo could do what her feelings told her he could do.

“So, Mister Kolo. I felt that a top executive of Eden Corporation like you could secure a meeting with David Solomon for me.”

But Kolo tilted his head at her. “Me? An executive at Eden Corporation? Guess again, little Alice.”

“What? But how could you not be? My intuition was that —”

“That I could help you, yes. And I can.”

“Don’t interrupt me again,” Alice said, standing up and over Kolo in the moving limousine and bracing herself against the sway of the vehicle’s motion. Yet Kolo only looked up at her with mild amusement.

“You are 15 this year?”

Alice ignored his question. “My intuition is never wrong, but if you are not an executive at Eden Corporation, then how can I expect you to help me as Eden Corporation is helping my father?”

A bump in the road caused Alice to tumble back into her seat, to which she pressed a button on her armrest. The driver’s voice echoed from the intercom.

“Yes, miss?”

“Stop the car.”

And the limousine came to a smooth stop shortly. Kolo looked around through the windows.

“In the middle of the street? That’s bold even for an Engel,” Kolo observed.

Ignoring Kolo’s observation, Alice wondered to herself as she pondered the man sitting across from her. Her intuition was never wrong. She had felt compelled the moment she laid eyes upon him and his golden chain, a feeling so sharp that it caused her to almost yelp. The feeling told her that he was able to help her with her problem. No, that he was able to provide her with her solution.

Deciding that it was sacrilege to show a lack of faith in her intuition, Alice decided to play the host instead. “Where are my manners. Can I offer you a beverage, Mister Kolo?”

“Oh, certainly. That would be sublime,” her guest responded.

Alice waved her hand in front of the machine dispensary built into the vehicle, and it whirred to life, displaying a large selection of drinks.

“A martini for my guest,” Alice ordered. The machine whirred and accepted her command.

“Nothing for you?” Kolo asked.

“I am a minor,” was Alice’s short reply.

Moments passed, and then a slot opened, pushing out the martini. Kolo picked it up and sipped from it, smacking his lips.

“Ah, quite delicious. There was a time when I worked in a bar, you know.”

Mentally checking off her social obligations before launching into her request, Alice waited impatiently for Kolo to sip at his drink. When she gauged that he had sipped about half, she asked, “Kolo. How do you know you can help me? You do not even know what I want.”

But Kolo sipped at the martini again, slowly and infuriatingly, as though he was a man with all the time in the world. Having drained the drink, he gently placed the glass down. Alice resisted the urge to let her impatience show, but had half a mind to have her bodyguards throw him out.

“You want to forever be the person you love the most. But more than that, you want to preserve them as they are. Is that correct?”

After a moment, Alice’s face betrayed her smile. “So…you weren’t the wrong choice after all. You can help me. I will not ask how you know what I want, but only care for whether or not you can do it.”

“I can.”

Alice waited for more, but when no further response was coming, she asked, “So, will you?”

“Only if you can pay for it.”

Alice pulled out a hand mirror from next to her, looking into it as she placed her fingers gently against the cold glass, watching her reflection reach forward with its own fingers. She wondered how her father had thought about her personal presentation earlier, but knew he did not care. The only person who loved her was…

“Money is no object. I am struck with love, Kolo. A love that burns with the flames of eternity, one that will outlast even the sun itself. I want this wish granted at any cost.”

Turning back to Kolo, she continued, “There is no price too expensive, as long as you can give me what I want.”

“Ah, but there’s the rub. I don’t want money.”

Alice blinked. “Eden Corporation —”

“Takes money from your father, but I already told you that I am not from the Garden.”

Choosing to ignore that Kolo had interrupted her again, Alice pressed on, “If you are not from the Garden, nor do you know of how you can get me an audience with David Solomon, then how do you plan on helping me?”

“I’m quite surprised you haven’t asked your father to help you.” Kolo replied nonchalantly, leaning his chin on his fist. “After all, he will be the Garden’s first.”

Alice realized she was clenching her nails into her palm and loosened up. “Let us not talk about my father. He has no self-respect, choosing to abandon himself.”

“The man is the title holder for the longest living human, my dear. You cannot fault him for abandoning his—”

“Enough about my father,” Alice interrupted forcefully, “I am asking for your help regarding my problem because I have exhausted all possibilities, and laid my eyes on you just as I was about to give up. I know you can help me. What is your price?”

“The lives of your children.” Answered the Time Merchant.

Silence. Kolo waved a hand in front of the machine again and enunciated, “A bellini, thank you.”

The machine whirred, then deposited the drink. Kolo gingerly picked up the champagne flute and sipped it under Alice’s smoldering gaze.

“The lives…of my children?” she almost laughed, “A part of me? You think you can demand —”

clink. Kolo set the champagne flute down. Alice didn’t know why but flinched at the near-silent sound. Her eyes were drawn to him, but as she looked back up from the flute to him, she found her eyes riveted to the golden chain that hung from his breast pocket and trailed to the pocket watch in his hand.

“Do you know what they call me?”

Alice almost didn’t hear the question, but snapped her eyes up to look at his piercing gaze. And almost immediately, she felt that she should know the answer as she considered everything that had led up to this point. When she arrived at her conclusion, the feeling came back again. The utter, dreadful feeling of being so painfully correct yet nothing ever going her way.

Even as she could have sworn that in her peripheral vision the golden chain was glowing, she opened her mouth slowly, paused, and whispered into the silence.

“The Time Merchant.”

The Time Merchant’s look deepened, opening the fingers that clasped onto his pocket watch. “And you found me when you were desperate to have your wish granted. At any cost.”

What terrified Alice the most was her realization that the Time Merchant already knew what did and did not matter. The realization also marked the moment she simultaneously understood her next words needed to be measured out very, very carefully.

It consumed her even more as she reminded herself that she had faced such a suffocating experience before — that her father was just as rationally irrational as they say. That it was normal to obsess about every interaction that could have or could not have been made better or worse (in every possible sense of the meaning) by adding or subtracting that person from the situation.

Swallowing her guilt and ignoring the glow of the pocket watch, Alicia looked into the Time Merchant’s eyes. “I will consider it.”

“Oh? No negotiation?”

She was surprised. “I can?”

Kolo’s shoulders shrugged apologetically. “No, you can’t.”

Alice’s hopes fell, but she picked up her hand mirror again, pressing her fingers to the cool glass.

“But you can do it?”

“You can be her until you die,” Kolo promised.

Alice looked into her own eyes. “Yes. It’s just . . . I . . . let me think.”

Kolo’s pocket watch clicked open. “I have to be somewhere soon, and I’d rather not be late.”

“Please. Just…it’s a difficult payment. What does it mean, the lives of my children?”

Kolo slowly felt the golden chain, winding it around his index finger. “They will never live past five years old.”

“That’s simple then,” Alice declared after a moment. “I just won’t have children.”

“That’s your choice of course, Miss Engel,” Kolo replied, twisting the golden chain. “Would you like to see them?”

Alice started and turned around to look at Kolo. She knew the answer before she even asked. “Who?”

“Your children. I prefer my customers to know the full value of their payment so no one cries foul later on.“

Her head spinning, Alice sat down as she tried to comprehend it. But before she could form a thought, Kolo lifted his arm and dangled his pocket watch, which glowed brightly, spinning swiftly until it looked to Alice like she was seeing an image.

“Your firstborn,” Kolo whispered at her, a perplexing expression on his face.

Alice looked at the young girl’s face and knew instantly. “Miranda,” she whispered, a name that leaped unbidden from her lips. She didn’t know this child but she felt as though she will.

“Yes, Alice. And then there’s —”

But the spinning pocket watch was pushed away by Alice. “No.”

“No?” asked Kolo steely, “No? You’ve always wanted children of your own, so that you could ‘do right by them,’ yes? Are you already giving up on your own children too?”

“No,” Alice repeated. “No, because they aren’t real yet.”

“They will be.”

Alice shook her head, trying to convince herself too.

“I . . . will simply not have children,” she said slowly.

Kolo’s wrist snapped upwards and his hand caught the pocket watch, which was still glowing.

“I see,” he replied. Alice wondered if she heard a tinge of regret. “That will be hard for you, being someone that needs a family.”

She focused her eyes on Kolo’s chin, not daring to look him in the eye lest he glimpsed her wavering. “I have a family now, Kolo. I have my father.”

But Kolo’s soft eyes glanced at her pityingly, a piercingly sorrow gaze.

“I have accepted the terms of your deal, Time Merchant,” Alice stated formally, avoiding his gaze.

“Yes, you have,” Kolo replied. He placed the pocket watch flatly on his hand and then offered it to Alice. Alice looked at it dubiously.

“Place your hand over this watch.” The Time Merchant commanded, and Alice obliged, placing her hand gently over the watch. She did not touch it, but even at that range, it felt peculiar to her.

“Final chance, Miss Engel. Are you certain this is what you want?”

Alice gently bit her own lip to prevent replying, choosing to nod instead.

“Then I take your children’s futures as payment.”

The pocket watch’s glow emanated under her palm, but still she felt no heat. She wondered if it had failed.

“Is…is it done?” Alice asked after a few moments, when Kolo pulled his arm back.

“Quite,” Kolo said, patting the pocket watch down his breast pocket. “You have what you want now, Alice.”

“I do not feel any difference?” Alice asked, hastily looking for her hand mirror.

“Give it time,” he replied, shaking his head. “After all, that’s what you paid for. Could you let me off the station at Third Street? There’s a train waiting for me.”

Alice was checking to make sure that Kolo had not taken anything else, but seeing nothing amiss, responded by paging her chauffeur.

“Yes, miss?”

“Third Street. Train station.” she spoke simply, still looking at her reflection. She pursed her lips, and looked at her eyes, wondering if it was even possible to tell if Kolo had taken anything else. Pulling the mirror closer, she inspected. No wrinkles, and her eyelashes were as beautifully long as usual. She smiled.

“This is perfect.”

“Nothing is perfect,” the Time Merchant replied.

“Well, I am. Father would be proud.”

“Adam Engel will hear of no such tale,” Kolo spoke sharply, causing Alice to look up from her mirror. “If you talk about this to anyone, the spell breaks.”

“But…but over the decades. He will see.”

Kolo shrugged. “He won’t.” Alice felt a cold sense of dread as she processed what she heard. “What?” she asked slowly. “My father will not see it? Is he not The Garden’s first? Are you saying it won’t succeed?”

“You won’t remember most of this, so I won’t cause you anymore stress for now,” Kolo replied with a sad smile. “I will see you again someday though, when you have a different request.”

The limousine coasted to a stop, and the driver’s voice came from the communication device. “Train station on Third Street, miss.”

“That’s my stop!” Kolo said heartily, stretching his legs and getting up, then opening the door.

Alice stared at him, whom she had only just met, wondering what had just happened, trying to remember something important that this man, Kolo, had just told her.

But as his name swiftly slipped from her mind, as she struggled to contain within herself the importance of what had just transpired, Kolo popped his head back into the limousine and said cheerily, “But do have dinner with your father tonight, Alice. He will be in a better mood.”

And then he withdrew, the door shut, and Alice could not remember who he was at all.

 

---

 

What irked Alice the most was her realization that none of it mattered in all the ways that it should have mattered. The realization also marked the moment she simultaneously understood herself to have become exhausted of life.

It consumed her the more she reminded herself that this was “normal” – that life was as rationally irrational as they say. That it was normal to obsess about every interaction that could have or could not have been made better or worse (in every possible sense of the meaning) by adding or subtracting herself from the situation.

And yet, as she looked into her dainty reflection in her mirror and mused, she admitted to herself that she still loved Alice Engel, but wistfully wished that Alice Engel had lived a much more — she almost hated to say it — fulfilling life.

No, no, no. She immediately tossed the idea from her head. To question her own life’s worth and value was the utmost disrespect to herself, to her beliefs, to her love.

Of course her life mattered in all the ways it should have mattered. It was hers, and hers alone. She had chosen to give up so much, oh so much, to be the person she was today. The same person she was when she was but a 15 year old. She wanted to . . .

“Miss Engel?” a soft voice emanated from the room. “You have a guest.”

A guest? Without an appointment?

“Who?” Alice asked her digital attendant, wondering who could be important enough to have bypassed all the security and safeguards that protected one of society’s most important people from being needlessly disturbed.

“He is not registered in my databases, Miss.”

“Send him away, then,” Alice spared no thought for someone unknown.

“Now, now,” came an unfamiliar voice, echoing through her room. “Is that a way you treat an acquaintance?”

Alice looked at the source. A man was standing at the entrance to her room, wearing a gray-silver double-breasted suit. A thin golden chain hung from his right breast-pocket and he had just taken off a color-matching fedora.

And then the moment of clarity hit Alice.

“Shall I forcefully remove the intruder, Miss Engel?” her digital attendant’s voice echoed.

“No,” Alice replied faintly. “No, I know who he is.”

What agitated Alice the most was her realization that it was the momentary intersection of all things that could have mattered and that which never did matter. The realization also marked the moment she simultaneously understood herself to have watched it pass by a long, long time ago.

It consumed her the more she reminded herself that this was “normal” – that her life was as rationally irrational as they say. That it was normal to obsess about every interaction that could have or could not have been made better or worse (in every possible sense of the meaning) by adding or subtracting her most perfect life from the situation.

“You,” Alice murmured softly, clutching her head as the memories flooded in, the day she had met this man, having just angrily left a meeting with her father, having felt that strong sense of conviction in her absolute correctness, having ordered her bodyguards to pull this man into her limousine on the way home, having…

“Kolo, at your service,” her guest greeted her, settling himself into the sofa opposite her.

…having had her wish granted, at a cost she did not comprehend at the time.

The scene was oddly familiar, this sitting across from each other. And Alice knew why.

“May I have a drink?” was her guest’s request. “I am craving a gin and fizz.”

Alice resisted the urge to deny him one, then snapped her fingers twice.

A whirring sound echoed silently in the distance, and within a few moments, a pedestal raised itself in front of Koloolup, complete with his drink. He picked it up and sipped from the straw delightfully.

“Ah, that’s the stuff.”

Alice’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her guest, wondering what she should start off with.

“Did you plan this?” she accused him, blurting out the heaviest thing on her mind.

Kolo tilted his head at her, then sipped at his drink again, smacking his lips before answering. “Of course not. The choice was wholly yours.”

“Was it?” she asked relentlessly, “Was it really? Did you not convince a young and naive little girl that —”

“And to think that just a few moments ago, you were convincing yourself that to question your own life’s worth was disrespectful to yourself.”

She fell silent.

Moments passed as she watched Kolo enjoy his drink, trying to collect her thoughts and determine what she should say next.

“…you said you would see me again, when I have a different request,” she began slowly, choosing her words carefully.

“That I did. I’m surprised you remember so well. For you, that was two centuries ago.”

Alice looked at her slender fingers, unblemished by time. “I am old, but the memory never left. I had just forgotten.”

“Only in soul,” Kolo replied, setting down his glass. “I’m happy you reconciled with your father.”

“I…he…well, he was in a good mood that evening, like you said. The Garden had approved his first host body, so of course. But you knew, did you not?” Alice looked away, fighting the urge to weep as the memories surged, “You knew, you told me, and then you bade me forget. No, you made me forget. He never got what he wanted.”

Alice covered her face with her hands as that day’s memories surged, “I never got what I wanted. Why, Kolo?”

She felt and heard him get up from the sofa and walk towards her, then a gentle but firm hand held hers and pulled gently. She forced herself to look at him, kneeling in front of her, his golden chain glowing dully.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She broke down, holding his hand and letting the tears stream down freely as she looked at Kolo with a hazy sight, unable to see his expression. He knew all along. He was right. The choice, the choice had been wholly hers.

“Why . . . why did you not offer me a different wish? The one you knew I needed,” she sobbed, “Why did you let me make such a payment? I no longer have a family, Kolo. My father was my only family, and I thought he…”

“I’m a merchant. I sell you what you wanted. But I also did tell you what you needed,” Kolo replied.

“I didn’t know what I needed!” Alice looked at him, her temperature flaring up at the injustice of it all. “You tricked me!”

“No,” was Kolo’s gentle reminder. “You already had what you needed, just like your father. He wanted a family too, and that’s why he found you and claimed you, and made you his perfect little angel. Having been without a family your whole life, only to find out that you were Adam Engel’s . . . you wanted that to be your forever.”

Alice closed her eyes, turning her face away. She did not want to hear it. She could not bear to hear it.

“And now I am here to fulfill your second request, Miss Engel, who loved who she was.”

She did not want to turn to him again. Not again.

“You already knew it then. You know it now,” she spoke accusingly. “You knew that my wishing for my own time to be stopped would not give me any happiness at all.”

His hand withdrew, and she felt Kolo stand up.

“You can always refuse, Alice. The choice is always, always, yours.”

But her body moved and she found herself turning back to him and grabbing his arm.

“Kolo. Please.” Unbecoming of her, but she cared no longer for decorum.

“What would you offer me?” asked the Time Merchant. “A person frozen in time has no time.”

Alice withdrew her hand, horrified at the thought. Then she noticed the bright chain glowing again, and she felt a moment of clarity. “I have accumulated time.”

Kolo sighed, looking to tuck away the chain that hung from his breast pocket. “Don’t, Alice.”

“Yes,” Alice was certain of it now. “I have the accumulated time that I have lived so far. I offer it as payment.”

That feeling again. She had thought she lost it. A compelling feeling, one that told her that she was definitely right, that to press on is the correct decision. The same one that had helped her all those years, that had disappeared once upon a time.

Before she knew it, the pocket watch was dangling in her face, glowing a deep, golden hue.

“You’re sure about this, Alice?”

Nothing is perfect.

“Yes.”

The pocket watch began to spin, slowly, a shiny golden ball on the end of a golden chain.

“You agree to cease your existence.”

I am perfect.

“Yes.”

“It won’t be happiness or anything. You will simply cease.” Kolo’s voice sounded almost pleading.

The pocket watch’s spinning picked up and the glow became an iridescent whiteness, Alice closed her eyes.

“I understand.”

I am —

And the perfect little girl was no more.

---

For more Time Merchant stories, please visit the index!