Tick Again

A drawer of watches nobody came back for, and a bench to mend them on. You inherit the shut watch shop of Tomás Arroyo in Quito's old town, and with it twelve repairs left unclaimed: a pocket watch that stopped the night its owner died, a railroad watch that gains minutes an hour, a nurse's fob watch with its dial printed upside down. Each comes in its envelope, with what its owner said and what Tomás wrote about it. Every watch is a real mechanism, simulated part by part. Open the case at its lip with the case knife. Let the mainspring down with a tap on the click. Back the screws out by circling them with the screwdriver, and lift the parts away with the tweezers into the tray, in the order the movement itself allows — the balance before the pallet c**k, the ratchet before the barrel bridge, the cannon pinion before the centre wheel. Nothing is faked: the parts cover each other exactly as their real shapes and heights do, and a part that will not come off tells you what is holding it. Find the fault by its real symptom. A broken mainspring lets the crown turn and turn with nothing catching. A rusted click spring lets the crown spin back. A loose cannon pinion leaves the hands standing while the train runs. A magnetized hairspring gains three minutes an hour. Old oil at the balance stops the watch face down. Then put it right, and put it back together: clean the parts, oil every jewel with the oil it takes — fine for the fast pivots, heavier for the slow ones, pallet stone oil on the exit stone, grease on the keyless works — drive the screws home, case it up, and regulate it on the timegrapher until the trace lies flat. Six calibers, built to their real designs: a Swiss lever pocket movement, an American railroad full plate that is lever-set, a Roskopf pin-lever with no jewels at all, a small wrist caliber, a hi-beat automatic with a day and date in English and Spanish, and a column-wheel chronograph. Every gear has its real tooth count, and the beat rate follows from them. The tick you hear is the escapement's three sounds — unlock, impulse, drop — placed from the simulation, so a watch out of beat limps audibly, and a fast one climbs the timegrapher's trace. The repaired watches go on the shelf, still running in real time on their own mainsprings. Wind one, set it, open its back to see the movement you rebuilt. Some go home to the family that left them, and leave a letter behind. One purchase, everything in it: iPhone and iPad, all twelve watches, every free update. No ads, no in-app purchases, no accounts, no tracking, and nothing leaves your device. Your shelf follows you between iPhone and iPad through iCloud.