The Scroll Roller

I

    Enoch sat in the waiting room of the morose, semi-gothic office, waiting for his job interview to begin. Upon entry, the only seat available was an uncomfortable wooden bench providing no cushioning or back support. So, in order to distract from his fidgeting, he assessed his attire and observed the room. First, he looked down towards his pointed leather shoes and deliberated on whether or not the rest of his suit was noticeably too tight; it was once a perfect fit until a high-temperature wash shrunk the ends of his trousers down a considerable few centimetres, knocking against and tickling his ankles. He also wondered if the suit was too bright a colour – despite it being a humble navy-blue, it may as well have been a flamingo-pink in this dimly lit, archaic mansion.

    In the corner of the room was a tall grandfather clock, the pendulum in its trunk swinging ferociously, ticking away. He’d never actually seen one in person before, and now, after a careful analysis of its design, he understood the reasoning behind its name. They were, by nature, larger, wiser, and more mature than the other clocks; there was a well-earned smarminess to them, a radiating scrupulousness. Its hands, pointing in whichever direction they may, pierced into his soul, committing to intense eye contact. Enoch felt somewhat intimidated by this – an inanimate object of all things – which led him to believe that there was someone inside it, or that it possessed a soul of its own. Of course, this was only Enoch’s theory, of which lacked any real evidence, based solely on conjecture and anxiety, and yet, it was hard to blame him for such a thought process. Afterall, he had no idea – not really – what this job entailed, nor what this place really was.

    The hard-faced receptionist to his left rose from her desk, abandoning her post of computerised solitaire, and walked over to the clock, stroking it with a wrinkled hand. Then, from the inner pocket of her blazer, she took out two items of similar shape: a golden pocket-watch and a tape measure. She raised the watch in front of her and watched each tick and each tock with intense focus. After a few seconds, she put it back and proceeded to stretch the tape measure along the height, length, and width of the grandfather clock. Each measure made was as delicate as the hand she stroked it with, soothing the intensity of this old and astute wooden mechanism.

    It was at this point that Enoch concluded that his make-believe “theory” of a sentient clock was certified fact, giving way to the idea that the pendulum inside, visible through a slim and fragile window, was the lungs of its body; healthy and steady, swinging from left to right, left to right, breathing in and out, in and out; a repetitive meditation.

    Even the receptionist’s face simmered down as she performed these actions. All the ingrained wrinkles that once presided over her had loosened up, transforming her expression into a soft and maternal one. This was only temporary, however, for the minute she turned around and looked at Enoch, she grimaced again, and at once he felt uncomfortable.

    She said to him, inquisitively, ‘Enoch Dowie?’

    ‘Yes,’ he answered.

    There was a semi-eternal pause as their eyes clashed, gridlocked. Hers viciously assessed his, glaring, whereas his tried to give an illusion of cool, but they instead reeked of confusion and panic.

    ‘Do you feel you’re ready for your interview?’ asked the receptionist, finally, transitioning back to her desk.

    ‘Yes,’ lied Enoch.

    She nodded, detached her glare from his and, with a claw-like, red polished finger-nail, pressed the miniature button next to her. A door next to the clock creaked open, only slightly, all by itself.

    All Enoch had to do now, he knew, was walk through it, and the interview would begin.

II

‘So, you want to be a Scroll Roller?’ asked Elroy Waymond, the interviewer.

    No, thought Enoch, but instead he said, ‘Yes.’

    Waymond said nothing in response. He picked up the sheets of paper on his desk and slowly, painfully, shuffled through them in search of a specific something. During this elongated interval, Enoch studied him.

    He was a wealthy man, evident by the rows of bookcases and sculptures, as well as the obsessively varied collection of grandfather clocks displayed behind him, scattered around half of the room. He sat obtusely with a potent hauteur; despite his receding hairline, he had fantastical, flowing-white locks trickling down his nape. He wore big, square glasses with thick lenses inside – the only time he detached them from his face was to itch the corners of his eyes. He was a man of taciturn nature, seeming only to speak if he had something of importance to say, choosing his words diligently with no affectation.

    Despite sitting at the same level, Enoch felt as though Waymond was towering over him, looking down snobbishly, waiting for something impressive. How diffident Enoch must have seemed in comparison.

    At last, Waymond spoke: ‘Do you know what we do here?’

    Enoch was tempted to lie again but decided against it.

    ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ he answered. ‘But this seems like a very interesting establishment, one that I’m sure is full of—’ he scoured his brain for the correct word: ‘Opportunities.’

    Waymond sighed, and went on to explain, ‘Mr Dowie, we at the Enigmacia Company are dedicated to changing the way people think about themselves, about life, death, and all the things in between. We provide a sense of assurance for the people of this world – this cruel, relentless world. And it’s because of its relentlessness that we must do what we do in obscurity, remaining in the background, behind the never-lifted theatre curtain. I have dedicated the majority of my life into running this business, and those that have joined me have never left. No matter the department you work for here, you will have a guaranteed income and, as you so uninformedly put it, opportunities.’

    But what is it you actually do? thought Enoch, but didn’t dare ask.

    ‘What we are looking for, Mr Dowie,’ continued Waymond, ‘is someone with a strong work ethic, a passion for what we represent, and an immaculate acuity for detail. Your job, should we decide to take you on, will consist of heading out into the depository and rolling the designated scrolls, with the utmost precision, atop the selected runes. Do you think you could do that?’

    ‘Sure.’

    Waymond grimaced, ‘We need more than “sure”!’

    Enoch felt on the verge of rolling his eyes. He had a myriad of questions: Is this a cult? Is this a pyramid scheme? What’s the correct way to roll a scroll? What’s the depository? What’re the runes? What’s the pay? What time is lunch? Do I get cigarette breaks? And most importantly: What do you actually do? But he couldn’t ask any of them; he desperately needed the money and didn’t want to ruin his chances of receiving it.

    ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Enoch, playing the game. ‘I can definitely do that. Definitely. I can roll scrolls for you.’

    ‘Do you not have any questions for me?’

    ‘Well…’ Enoch quickly scanned his list and tried to pick the most appropriate one. ‘What’s the pay? I don’t believe it was on the job advertisement.’

    ‘Twenty-five pounds an hour, five days a week.’

    Holy shit! exclaimed Enoch’s eyes. All the other questions promptly left his head, but he still had to remain as collected and nonchalant as possible, keeping a professional enthusiasm.

    He said, ‘Oh wow, that’s great!’

    ‘As I’ve said, Mr Dowie, we are dedicated to changing the way people think about themselves, that includes their self-worth, and those people deserve more than a mere minimum wage. Do you not agree?’

    ‘I agree,’ trembled Enoch’s voice.

    ‘Why do you think you can do this job?’ asked Waymond, rising from his chair, his hands behind his back, strolling through his jungle of clocks and examining them, waiting for an answer.

    ‘Well, I don’t have any experience in rolling scrolls, I’ll admit that much—’ began Enoch, watching a hunched Waymond side-eye him with a smugly raised brow. ‘But I’m a fast and keen learner. It’s one of my strengths, of which I’m not sure how many I have, but I know that that’s one of them. I learned to play guitar all by myself when I was sixteen and managed it just fine. I learned the periodic table when I was twelve in three days. I learned carpentry when I was thirteen, merely by watching my father—’

    Enoch stopped and coughed out a knotted sensation from his throat.

    Waymond interposed, fiddling with the ring on his index finger, ‘So, you believe you can learn to do this, quickly and with ease, yes?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘And you’re fine working in the depository, I trust?’

    ‘Yes,’ he said, still with no idea of what the depository was.

    Waymond nodded slowly, with caution, and made his way back to the desk. He pulled out his chair and sat down; the clocks enveloped his aura, ticking into his eardrums, crowding around from behind – they were advising him, every one of them a sentient being with their own valuable opinions.

   Enoch blinked for a few seconds in an attempt to erase the idea. Perhaps it was just the excitement and confusion of a new place, one far more bizarre than he’d ever encountered; or maybe it was the stress of not knowing what the Enigmacia Company really was.

    He had to ask: ‘I’m sorry, but what is the depository?’

    Waymond, his pallid face tilted in a dour expression, ignored the question and asked, ‘Do you want the job, Mr Dowie, or not?’

    ‘Yes,’ said Enoch, nervously. ‘I do, but what is the dep—’

    ‘Very well. You start today. I believe you have met Collette, my assistant – she will guide you to where you need to be.’

    ‘But, I—’

    ‘Please see to it that you give her any belongings you have with you that you don’t want damaged.’

    ‘Mr Waymond, sir—’

    ‘Oh, yes, are you taking any medication?’

    ‘I don’t—’

    Enoch stopped in his tracks. He barely had a chance to comprehend what was happening; although he urgently needed the money, he didn’t think he’d have to start working today.

    The weather outside, visible from the circular window at the back of the room, was dark and cloudy. Heavy raindrops threw themselves into the glass at an intense velocity and weight as wind pushed the trees with a violence only Mother Nature was capable of – was the depository out there? Surely not! Waymond wasn’t fazed by it – he was focused solely on Enoch’s timid eyes which flitted between the window and every ornament in the room’s possession, trying to figure out what to say next.

    Enoch was being offered a job – a real job! One where they didn’t even glance at his employment history, which was lucky in and of itself – God knows how this interview would have gone if they did. And twenty-five pounds an hour! For what? Rolling some scrolls? How hard could it be? But, at the same time, what was the Enigmacia Company? What was the depository? Why did he have to start today?

    In deep contemplation, his thoughts wandering elsewhere, Enoch realised he hadn’t heard Waymond’s last question.

    ‘Sorry, sir, what was that?’ he asked.

    ‘Are you currently taking any medication?’

    ‘No,’ lied Enoch.

III

The woman Enoch now knew as Collette guided him to the depository – as dreaded, it was outside in the chaotic weather. They stood parallel to each other, just outback. Enoch gazed out in disbelief, his face scrunched into a ball, whereas Collette, with her typical rigidity, looked on for a few more seconds, then diverted her attention towards him.

    ‘Any questions?’ she asked, eager to get back to her desk.

    ‘This is…’

    ‘Yes, this is the depository.’

    ‘But, this is a graveyard,’ he said, astonished, sweeping his arm across the grim landscape.

    What Waymond referred to as ‘runes’, Enoch now knew were graves. The majority of them flailed about in puddles of rainwater, their curved heads pointing arduously from the top, gasping for air. The ones that weren’t drowning remained damp with messy, overgrown weeds, coddling the faded tombstones. In front of each was a capsule, designed specifically for the scrolls’ placement.

    ‘Why do you call it—’ he stopped himself when she rolled her eyes derisively. ‘Never mind.’

    She handed him a hefty dirt-green bag filled with sheets of paper and instructed, ‘Roll them, and place them into their assigned capsules.’

    Enoch nodded, and in an instant, she was gone, slamming the door behind her. He shook his head and tried his utmost to lift the bag, but he couldn’t – he had to drag it through the wet grass, possibly damaging its contents. Luckily, the first grave (or rune, if you were Waymond) was only a few feet away, so he lugged it closer and stood in front of it, still trying to comprehend his situation.

    He looked up into the rain as his hair and face dripped wet. What the hell am I doing? he thought. I could leave. I could pack this in and go. I haven’t signed a contract, I don’t know what this place is, nor where it is. Nowhere online did this company exist, and even being here, being told what they do, it didn’t exactly clarify things. He pulled in his chin and pinched the bridge of his nose, dumbfounded. A fucking Scroll Roller? What am I doing?

    The graves didn’t seem well cared for. Each one was difficult to read, the words partially chipped off, fading into obscurity – nameless, unidentifiable. In fact, the only way he knew which scroll was assigned to which grave was by looking at the corresponding numbers on each.

    He sighed, gritted his teeth, and realised that twenty-five-pounds an hour was too good an offer to pass up, and God knew he needed it, so he decided to do this strange and cultish job for today, just to prove that he wouldn’t give up as he often had a tendency to do, he wouldn’t abandon this new duty. He had to be committed now, and if he couldn’t do it this time then he’d forever be a lost cause, a failure in the eyes of those who believed in him and stayed by his side for so long.

    With these deterministic thoughts at the forefront of his mind, he knelt on one knee and rummaged around for the first assigned sheet of paper, Scroll No.1. He held it in front of him, squinting, trying to make out what it said in the middle of the page. It was in Latin, he realised, and had no idea what it meant: In conatu deficere, cunctation et temeritas clavis est. Still, even under the intense rain (which, luckily, was beginning to die down) he rolled it into a scroll with delicate, precise fingers, and begged no one in particular, under his breath, for it not to be damaged, and by some miracle it worked. In the front compartment of the bag were some rubber bands – he unzipped it, took one out, and used it to seal the scroll in place. Then, he took out the capsule, slotted it inside, and placed it back in.

    He sighed again (this time with his cheeks inflated), looked up and over the tombstone, and saw approximately fifty more graves – he had no way of knowing how many more were lurking in the dark, awaiting him. Before getting up, he peeked at the other sheets of paper and skimmed through them, noticing that they all had text written onto them in a variety of languages:

    Scroll No.5: Succes hangt af van je vermogen om door te gaan.

    Scroll No.13: 時計は常に時を刻む

    Scroll No.29: Trzeba robić to, czego nienawidzą - nie pytaj dlaczego i jak!

    Enoch didn’t bother reading the rest, he had no inkling of what any of them meant. He placed them back inside the bag and dragged it through the slushy, muddied grass, its weight wearing him down. His shoes were getting dirtier, and his socks squelched up his skin with cold brown water, all thanks to his shrunken, clumsy trousers. Every grave he stopped at was a blissful relief… that is, until he had to go through the repetitive motions of searching for the allocated loose paper, rolling it up, sealing it, and then placing it inside the capsule. It was the same every time.

    Paper. Roll. Seal. Capsule. Move on.

    Paper. Roll. Seal. Capsule. Move on.

    Paper. Roll. Seal. Capsule. Move on.

    Paper. Roll. Seal. Capsule. Move on.

    By grave eighty, Enoch had tied his blazer around his waist – his movements had become far too constricted. The rain stopped also, and he could see clear as day the abundance of graves awaiting him. They were daunting, infinite – how he was going to carry the bag (of which hadn’t grown any lighter, at least, not by his own estimations) all the way across to the unforeseeable-other-side was beyond him. He wasn’t even wearing a watch, so he had no way of knowing how long he’d been there or how long it would take him.

    If only one of those grandfather clocks were here, he joked to himself, chuckling sardonically. However, that laughter quickly subsided when he thought about the reality of his situation, closing in on the conclusion that perhaps not even the money was worth it anymore. His back was killing; he was uncomfortably wet; his clothes were ruined; and he wasn’t sure how long he had left to do this. And what were the scrolls? Where was everyone? This is insane, he thought, dropping the bag, turning around. I’m leaving, what kind of self-respecting person—

    Something halted him as he turned to leave, facing the gothic headquarters of Enigmacia. A red and purple light shone in his periphery, its warmness pressing into his cheek. He turned in its direction and saw, segregated from the graves, a small, well-looked-after hut that led into the ground with a crimson-neon sign built above: Feathers’ Fortune Services. Just below the sign, in a dimmed, violet-neon, were the words: Change is one step away. The entrance was doorless, and anyone wishing to enter would have to duck and shimmy their way through it. To either side were a bundle of once-beautiful yellow flowers that had been trampled on by the weight of the rain.

    Without question, as if an invisible rope was lassoed around his chest, he was pulled towards it, semi-hypnotised by the glistening lights and messages. It was the mystery that made it so alluring; this hidden gem stood out amongst the other dull and morbid colours. How hadn’t he noticed this before? Had the lights been turned off all this time? For a second, he convinced himself it wasn’t even real, that it was only a mirage; after all, it wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing to have happened to him today. Only when he grazed his fingertips along the rough, grey bricks of the hut did he realise that it was no mirage, no illusion, nor a hallucination: it was a physical reality.

    His eyes opened wide. He froze up for a few seconds, and then slowly turned to take one more, quick glance at the graveyard. The invisible rope that pulled him there had loosened, and his will was once again his own.

    Despite knowing that he really shouldn’t, he ducked and carefully entered the hut anyway, leaving behind the scroll rolling in favour of a venture into the unknown.

IV

Immediately inside the hut, Enoch was greeted by a set of steep, downward stairs that led underground. Assisting him, to his right, was a continuous row of dimly lit bulbs dangling from a rope, projecting a yellow-tinged light that paved the way. The stairs were made of flimsy, damp wood that creaked with each step, and as he skimmed his fingers along the jagged stone wall, he could hear the miniscule crumbs fall and bounce onto it.

    His nerves were high – evident by his constantly shaking leg and his finger-twitching skittishness – but the adrenaline surging through his body meant he could afford to ignore it. Even the air grew colder, so much so that he put his soggy blazer back on and continued. Only a few times did he consider turning back, looking behind him, internally debating with himself about whether or not to do so, but the doorway he came in from was now but a small, glistening hole akin to an ancient star in the night sky, lightyears away – it would have been a fruitless effort. Enoch didn’t need to worry about this for much longer though, for soon he would reach his destination.

    He found himself in a small room, decorated with all kinds of mystical ornaments and equipment: tarot posters and cards, glass orbs, incense, and statues. However, in juxtaposition with this aesthetic, there was a counter with a shopping till and bell, a stockroom behind it with a door that seemed to be constantly shaking, and a menu of items accompanied with their prices. Enoch stood there, observing, slightly hunched, worried that if he stood too upright he might bang his head and make ceiling crumble down on top of him. After careful analysis and a few more stiff turns of the head, he realised: this was a shop.

    There was also someone manning the till, staring at him coldly, nearing judgmental – he decided that this was probably the shopkeeper. They had a small, weighty body, covered up with pitch black robes and golden buttons that travelled up the middle; a pallid, thick face with heavy purple lipstick, complimented by the slicked back, oleaginous hair; and wide, piercing eyes that didn’t seem to belong to them. They fitted the aura of the Enigmacia headquarters in every way.

    ‘May I help you?’ asked the astutely stood shopkeeper in a sonorous voice.

    Enoch didn’t know what to say. His mouth kept opening, but nothing came out.

    ‘Sir, may I help you?’ they repeated.

    ‘Hi, hello, sorry. Erm… Where am I?’ he blurted.

    ‘You’re in my shop.’

    Enoch felt stupid for asking – of course he was in a shop, anyone could see that! So, in order to avoid any more embarrassment, he searched his brain for something that he genuinely didn’t know the answer to:

    ‘Why is your shop located here, of all places?’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

    ‘What better place for those lost, maudlin souls like yourself, eh?’ said the shopkeeper, moving only their eyes and nothing else. ‘Arrivals like you come once every now and then. Not that frequently, I’ll admit, but frequently enough to keep business alive.’

    ‘Excuse me?’

    ‘Come, come, don’t be shy, walk closer and take a seat. Let us discuss why you’re here.’

    Lost, maudlin souls? he deliberated. What on Earth—

    Confused, Enoch obliged, his legs no less shaky than they were on the stairs, and with every step he made, instead of hearing wooden creaks, he saw the stockroom door vibrate, bang, and shudder violently. He didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder too much about it, so he sat on the stool opposite the till and engaged in conversation.

    ‘So, what is this shop?’ asked Enoch. ‘Are you part of Enigmacia?’

    ‘In a sense, yes. We are more like… hired consultants,’ they supplied. ‘We set up shop here, in the depository, and those that find us will find us when they are meant to. You, good sir, found me because you were meant to in this moment.’

    ‘Right… but what do you sell?’

    ‘I can tell you for a fee.’

    ‘How much?’

    ‘However much you have on you.’

    Enoch, who was still so bewildered by the peculiarity of it all, rummaged around his soggy pockets and found, soaking in their depths, seven pence. Once again embarrassed, he reached it over, avoiding eye contact.

    ‘This is all I have.’

    The shopkeeper smirked, ‘Then all you have will suffice.’ They took it from his hand and began, ‘Mr Dowie, at this shop we tell fortunes, read minds, and seal fates. You came to this job of scroll rolling not by chance, but because we wanted you here; we summoned you, called you. Enigmacia had intricately planned your presence here, and now, I shall do my bit in this grand tapestry.’

    Enoch was astonished, ‘How do you know my name?’

    The shopkeeper ignored the question as their eyes folded back in on themselves, revealing not the white of their sclera, but an inverted black, gaping void, their voice changing into a harmony of four wildly different ones.

    ‘Enoch Edward Dowie! How do you justify your existence?’ they demanded.

    ‘What the fuck…’

    ‘Enoch! Answer!’

    He was sweating, on the verge of tears. He tried to escape the stool but was bound to it in a state of paralysis.

    ‘I…I…I… I don’t…’ he gulped, trying to pull himself together, his clammy hands gripped to the sides. ‘I don’t justify my existence! I am nothing. I am worth nothing.’

    ‘Try harder! Your indecisiveness and recklessness will be the reason for your failure! If you cannot answer me, you will leave here a husk of yourself, trapped inside the pessimistic clock – the clock that always ticks. You may hate this, you may hate that I am asking you this, but you must answer without question. You were called here, do you understand? You were summoned!’

    Enoch felt the stool tip backwards in a state of fright. Despite the shopkeeper’s motionless stance, it felt like they were getting closer to him, pushing their pale, ill-ridden face into his. It wasn’t until he noticed the stockroom door thud yet again that his balance finally gave in. He fell backwards onto the floor, his arm flattened by his body, and, somehow, filled with adrenaline, pushed himself back to his feet in a winded coughing fit.

    What are they talking about? I’ll leave a husk of myself? he ruminated hastily. I have no idea how to justify my existence – there is no justification for it! I am simply here for no other reason than to breathe, and that mundane fact saddens me almost every day… No, no, it doesn’t sadden me, it stresses me. My existence is minor, insignificant and without purpose. He looked towards the shopkeeper, whose eyes were still black, their slicked hair beginning to frizz and become static. But what does it matter to this person? Why does this incomprehensible being care about what I have to say? I have no answer other than the one I’ve already given.

    Enoch shouted, ‘I have no justification! I just… I just…’

    ‘You just what?’

    ‘I just exist, and I haven’t figured out why yet!’

    ‘Well then, I cannot help you.’

    A gust of wind suddenly attacked the shop and the ceiling begun to crack, forming zigzags and drooping with dirt. The stockroom door grew more intense in its thuds as the floor tilted and turned. Just as Enoch was about to bolt out of the door to escape his demise, the wind revealed something peculiar hidden beneath the robes of the previously idiosyncratic, now demonic shopkeeper. Sliding out from the skin of their wrists were two flesh textured tubes, almost like electronic wiring, flowing under the door of the ever-vibrating stockroom. They were pulsating, fuelling something through their claustrum insides.

    In an attempt to shift Enoch’s focus away from this revelation, the shopkeeper declaimed, ‘Enoch Dowie, would you call yourself a liar?’

    ‘What’s in the stockroom?’

    ‘Are you a liar, Enoch?

    ‘What’s in the stockroom?’

    ‘Are you a liar?’

    This exchange went on for a bit longer amongst the rumbling until Enoch, in a fit of rage and frustration, leapt over the counter and dived onto the shopkeeper. He pinned them to the floor, and with dust falling onto their face, their body spasming, he inspected the wrists further. The tubes were part of their body, just as their hands, legs, and face were, and each disgusting pulse shared the rhythm of a heartbeat. He looked up from it; the stockroom door was banging even harder now.

    ‘Liar!’ screamed the shopkeeper, accusatorily. ‘Liar! You are a liar, Enoch Dowie!’

    ‘Am I?’ replied Enoch, carefully standing up, trying not to lose balance. ‘I’m going to the stockroom.’

    The shopkeeper persisted in their accusations, screaming until the screams turned to lamentations, begs, and then, finally, crying.

   ‘You are a liar! You know you are! Liar!’

    The entrance was beginning to clog up with stones and rocks piling on top of each other, but he paid it no mind. Instead, he stumbled towards the stockroom and strenuously reached for the handle as the shopkeeper’s cries shrunk into tinny, faded background noises. As soon as his fingertips grazed its metallic door handle, it pushed itself down and flung open, revealing unto him a faceless apparition, tall, skinny, surrounded by shelves of disorganised gears and cogs and handles of clocks. The fleshy tubes were connected to the being’s fingers, anchoring it into a hunch. It had darkish brown hair parted down its forehead; pointy shoes; a navy-blue suit with trousers that clashed against the ankles; and—

    It was Enoch. Even his own face, a somewhat forlorn and sorrowful version of it, was slowly forming inside its empty spheroid canvas. As the ceiling gave into gravity, it reached out for him in a desperate attempt of salvation, its mouth open and narrowed – if it had a voice, it would no doubt be screaming, bellowing in agony. Palsied, Enoch stood there as its body flew right through his like thin air. His own body was then pushed backwards with immense force, over the counter and the maniacal shopkeeper, bursting through the barricade of rubble and, finally, up the stairs.

    He had returned to the graveyard, lying on the grass. The sky was cloudless and blue, but the sun was blockaded by what he at first assumed was the gothic Enigmacia building. However, after he found his bearings, standing on both feet, he saw every grave, enough to make an entire city, had grown into the size of skyscrapers. The ground surrounding each of them was covered by thick layers of fog, the scrolls all unrolled and partially ripped.

    Enoch’s head tilted backwards, facing up, and the gargantuan grave closest to him stabbed through the atmosphere. Peering over it was the strange, stockroom simulacra of himself, also a zombified colossal, still with fleshy wires in its fingers and black smoke leaking from its back. It reached out for him again, its giant palm engulfing him in darkness.

    He couldn’t bear it any longer.

    He didn’t understand.

    He wanted to be anywhere but here.

    Anywhere.

    He gave up. His head tipped backwards, losing cognizance, and his body followed along as it slammed onto the floor.

V

An incalculable time later, Enoch came to. His body – although he couldn’t see or feel it – was stiff, stuck in place. He darted his eyes from left to right in an attempt to figure out where he was, waiting for the blurry filter obstructing his vision to dissipate. Once it did, all he could see was the profile of a familiar hard-faced woman, scowling, examining him with a pocket-watch and a tape measure.

   Collette! said Enoch, but it was as he did so that he realised he had no mouth to speak it with. Better yet, he had no arms, legs, hands, chest, stomach – nothing. He was limbless and, as far as he could tell, bore no human tissue, nor anything else remotely human. He was breathing, somehow, through a weighty, swinging apparatus in his centre, acting as a substitute for his lungs. He could hear the deep ticks and tocks resonate through where his ears should’ve been.

    Collette! he failed to say again. What happened? What’s going on?

    Oddly enough, despite no sound coming from his person, she seemed to understand him, exhibiting some kind of recognition to his words. She gave a rare, heart-warming smile, put the tape measure away, and stroked this sides. He could hear the roughness of her strokes, the skidding of her fingers across his hollow self – he didn’t feel like him, not at all.

    ‘It’s okay,’ said Collette, her kind smile transforming into a zealot’s one. ‘It’s okay. You managed to get just as far as most do.’

    Just as far?

    ‘Not many people get much further, so don’t feel bad about it. You’re the same as the others – try to find comfort in that. You can recuperate here. We’ll take care of you.’

    Within an instant, Enoch noticed something obstruct his view: a dark, thin bar with an arrowed end. It was dangerously close to his eyes, pointing upwards. The swinging apparatus ticked faster and faster as soon as he realised what was going on; it kept on with no intention of slowing down.

    ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Collette, rapidly. ‘Calm down, calm down. It’s okay. Sshh. Sshh.’

    She kept stroking his wooden surface, but the ticking wouldn’t stop, soon transitioning into a cycle of thunderous, angry noises. It was persistent, increasing in volume. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick—

    A door creaked open.

    ‘Collette! Will you keep it down!’ shouted Elroy Waymond, coming out of his office, red-faced, glasses steamed up. ‘I am conducting another interview and I can’t hear myself think amongst this torturous noise!’

    Collette quivered, ‘Sorry, sir.’

    ‘Are you getting it all excited again?’

    ‘No, no. The opposite! I’m trying to calm it down! It hasn’t adjusted yet.’

    Waymond looked at Enoch, grimaced, and walked opposite him with his hands in his pockets. The ticking remained loud and angry. He snatched Collette’s watch off her, stared at it, and lifted a finger.

    ‘It is Mr Dowie, is it not?’ said Waymond, passively. ‘Listen to me very carefully. You are here now. This is where you will stay until you have made the necessary changes to yourself. The calmer you remain, the faster your time here will go. In fact, time is all you have now. Time is all you are. You will tick away until I deem you ready to leave, but you must tick at a steady pace, do you understand? This little melodramatic show you are putting on? It will not help your case, and if you keep it up, you will be here until you die, and perhaps even longer than that. You need to stay here and think – think! The only person you can lie to now is yourself, and that is a futile effort in and of itself.’

    Enoch’s roaring swings slowed down. He had no thoughts, no words – he was a being of inanimation whose owner possessed full control over him.

    ‘Do you understand, Mr Dowie?’

    Yes, said Enoch the grandfather clock, wordlessly. I understand.