In Competition No. 2410 you were provided with opening and closing words and invited to write a story with the above title.
The given words were supposed to be the opening and closing ones of a Maclaren Ross story with this title, but owing to a clerical error, in other words my own foolish blunder, the ending I gave you was the ending of a different story by the same author. The correct ending was ‘I felt I deserved it.’ No matter, you grappled well with the problem presented. I especially enjoyed Basil Ransome-Davies’s cheeky opening: ‘The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five centuries or more since it had said anything else.’ The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and Brian Murdoch scoops the extra fiver.
The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five. When people first started to train clocks to speak, they didn’t realise that they would also become compulsive liars. It was something in the mechanism — they never quite grasped the concept of the honest truth. ‘Look,’ I said to it, ‘you’re a clock. Would it hurt to tell me what time it really is?’ ‘Ah, reality,’ it said. ‘Never got the hang of it, me being only a clock, even if I am a talking one. I know a computer who can’t understand real time. Anyway, it really is six in Frankfurt. And it’s six a.m. in Woolongong.’ The clock was beginning to annoy me. ‘Just give me the time here and now on the 24-hour system.’ ‘Well, since it’s you, squire, I’ll have a go,’ it said. ‘And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Brian Murdoch
The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five, a common sight on Planet SolIII. They’re for ever tampering with Time. For an inhabitant of AldVII, though, this was a kind of torment. Disparity between actuality and record (on SolII called ‘lying’) is impossible to us, and, when we encounter it on expeditions, physically painful. My naturally metamorphic metabolism had transformed me to the appearance of a schoolboy. I had to correct that clock before I became insane; so I teleported on to the tower and began manipulating the clock hands. ‘Look at that mad kid! What’s he doing?’ I heard a voice. Soon there was a crowd, staring upward. ‘Come down, you vandal!’ But I’d learned to understand these mercenary creatures. I addressed them, loudly. ‘I’m no vandal. I’m an extraterrestrial. I’m correcting your municipal clock. And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Gerard Benson
The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five. Talking clocks had been commonplace for years. However, some of them had recently become too big for their horological boots and were now dictators rather than communicators. ‘It’s five, not six, you thieving liar,’ I screamed. ‘Too late,’ intoned the clock; ‘it’s nearly eight.’
‘I’ll report you to the authorities for time theft.’
‘Toe the line, or it’ll be nine.’
‘This is my life you’re filching. I want those hours back. Now.’ I looked upwards at the church clock. ‘Tell this robber, “Thou shalt not steal.”’
But it simply chimed in with ‘And then it’s ten.’
I was in despair. My life was ticking away. The clock in the window of the bank would surely come to my aid. Its face beamed at my plea. ‘This seems of interest to me. You can have one hour from the Special Chronological Savings Account. But, remember, time is money. And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Jennifer Lowe
‘The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five. Why?’ We had been warned that the last two questions in the A-level tourism paper would be particularly tough. I sat back in my seat, scratching my head. Trev, my teacher, glanced over my shoulder. Then I heard him whistling ‘In the Summertime’ by Mungo Jerry. Was this a clue? I didn’t know what a ‘Mungo’ or a ‘Jerry’ was, so gambled and wrote, ‘Summertime — the clocks change.’ Now only the last question stood between me and Cambridge. ‘You work in a café that doesn’t take credit cards. What might you say to a customer wanting to pay the bill?’ Trev jangled some coins in his pocket and eventually the penny dropped. I breathed a sigh of relief and put pen to paper for the last time. ‘And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Peter Fetherston
The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five. Wasn’t nobody in Cold Bluff could explain it. Exceptin’ me, that is. And Molly from the livery stable, bein’ as how she had a key to the clock tower. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you the honest truth. From now until 1870 the moon will be orbitin’ unusually close to the earth, causin’ tidal effects to extend to the terrestrial atmospheric domain, with consequent worldwide disruption of sidereal lunar time. This affects all large clocks built before the invention of the Harper–Rowlands compensatin’ escapement. “Big Bill”, on Tower Bridge, London, was jumpin’ three hours a day until the Queen installed my Patent Universal Chronometric Calibrator. A smaller model appropriate to your own elegant timepiece will cost a mere $250. Plus, of course, a small charge for installation. And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Michael Swan
‘The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five…’ The Storyteller looked expectantly at the shabby crowd gathered around him. ‘Who’ll buy a good mystery, then?’ he asked.
‘I’ll pay 20 for a story called “The Honest Truth”!’ a thin pale woman challenged him. The Storyteller looked around fearfully: ‘I do make-believe only!’ The woman sighed. Truth was suppressed in The People’s Republic of Europa, but she’d hoped that the Storyteller might be able to disguise it as fiction (even if giving him 20 million euros meant forgoing supper). ‘Thirty for a romantic tale?’ a young man suggested hopefully, his careworn face looking for dreams. ‘You haven’t got 30, Alex,’ interrupted another man, too old for romance and too cynical to expect the truth. ‘Give us the mystery.’
‘Certainly,’ replied the Storyteller, happily. ‘It’ll cost 50 million. And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’
Virginia Price-Evans
No. 2413: Lunary spines
You are invited to supply a poem (maximum 16 lines) such as might have been written by the Revd Spooner of spoonerism fame. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2413’ by 6 October.
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