Tinkers

George keeps waking at night to find a young man by his bedside, sitting with him. George cannot see clearly so he cannot recognize this person, but he believes his to be very wise. The man says he feels surrounded by years past because of the books he found and reads from. George gets closer to death—he is now 72 hours from dying—and a nurse friend from church, Nikki Bocheki, comes to care for him. George does not recognize her. A passage from The Reasonable Horologist details the beauty and poetry of clocks, and it describes how their inner workings and rhythms make order out of chaos. George’s house has constant visitors, with friends and family coming through the back door and those looking to have their clocks repaired coming to the front. George’s wife sees his customers arrive, unaware that George is sick, and pay him for the work he did. His prices are high, his skills are niche, and he is very savvy with money. He keeps his earnings in many banks spread out across the region.

George often visits Ed Billings, the manager of the Enon branch of the Salem Five Bank. He fixes the bank’s big clock, which is often broken because Ed, a very tall man, unknowingly bumps into it and unbalances the inner mechanisms.