Till The Clock Strikes Gone

o5 | find me

William was lying in Eliza's bed. It was just like the one at home, not too hard nor too soft. He stared at the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars were covering the entire room. Eliza's room was small but kept neat and tidy. She didn't need it though but her father made sure that Eliza and William had their own room when they came over to stay with him once a year. There was a bed, a desk, and a bathroom. The room didn't have a cupboard but Eliza was always prepared.

When William came out after taking a shower, he had looked under the bed and sure enough, there was a duffle bag with some of his clothes and some of Eliza's. William found the shirt which he had been searching for long, the blue one she got him for his birthday last year, before their wedding. He liked the shirt. It was just like the ones his mom used to buy for him when he was a kid; the material was cotton. He found a pair of sweatpants and after changing into them, he rushed downstairs to grab something to eat. He had tried his best to avoid Harvey but when he reached downstairs, Harvey was sitting on one of the chairs around the dining table and reading his newspaper. There was food laid on the table — some bread and cheese along with scrambled eggs, the sight of which made William's stomach growl. He sat right across Harvey, not speaking a single word and ate his fill.

When he was done eating and was about to go back to the room, Harvey cleared his throat making William sit back in place. He didn't look at Harvey as the man reached underneath the table and brought up a very familiar object and placed it on the table.

It was a mason-jar with a golden lid on top. The inside of the jar contained a small black box attached at the bottom. The box, as Harvey often mentioned had 'a magnetic field so strong that it can create a rift in time' but that's not the thing that made William laugh at the box. It was the fact that the jar was filled with fireflies, something which made him wonder how Harvey got hold of them.

He looked at the jar and then at Harvey. The man was eyeing him with a look that could be compared with a scientist observing a microscopic element, but then again, Harvey Scott was obsessed with science. He had been a science teacher while he was engaged to Cassandra and later when he married her. Cassandra was a lawyer and born rich. She had so much money that she tried to convince Harvey to leave his job and focus on his life. William thought that the only reason she would say something like that to her husband was that she didn't like him torturing high schoolers with his weird theories about how the universe works.

'The Time Machine' or as he named the jar sitting right in front of William's eyes was one of those crazy experiments. When Cassandra died, Harvey had moved to a small town with Eliza and used to earn money through writing articles on various researches and selling them to magazines. He didn't need the money for Eliza though, for she had inherited all her mother's wealth and Harvey had no worries about her education.

The man had spent all his youth looking after his daughter who he didn't want to be raised by a governess. Eliza wanted to stay close to her lonely father, so she studied at the local schools in the town. William often admired Eliza for her love for her father. He found it unique because that's something which he never got to experience since his father was only ever an authority figure for him.

He studied his father-in-law. The man looked pretty good for someone in his late fifties. Although he slouched a bit, one could see that he had been a very handsome man during his youth. His tanned skin complemented his jet black hair and his green eyes were just like Eliza's. His face, like William's, was sharp and he had a strong jaw. He had the face of someone who commanded authority and he was doing the same to William.

"What would you do if you had a chance to travel back in time, son?" Harvey asked and William straightened on his seat.

Not this again — William wanted to express his disinterest in the matter but stopped himself.