I


Old Mr. Chomsky looked a bit like a weather-beaten, windburned barn owl. I'd never actually talked to him, but I walked past his tiny clock shop every morning on my way to school, and some saturdays on my way to my aunt's place in the outskirts of town. The only window in the shop was so thickly covered with dust and grime that you could hardly see inside it. From the looks of it, someone (probably not Chomsky himself, since I'd never seen him outside the shop) had started cleaning it, but given up immediately. In the lower right corner of the window was a square of glass not as hopelessly dirty as the rest of it, streaked with some kind of detergent. Why hadn't they finished the whole thing?
Across the lower section of the old (and quite beautiful, even covered in grime) window, was written "Chomsky & co. – time trinkets and clock repairs" in thick, italic, moldy green letters. Some days, when I for once wasn't late to school, I'd stop for a minute and bend down to look through that little clear window patch by the spline, just to see if the old man was in there. From where I crouched by the window corner he could not see me, but I could see him.

And he was always there. Always in the same spot, on a spindly-looking stool next to a dark mahogany desk in the back of the shop. Some days he wore a hat, and some days he had a steaming cup of soup, or maybe tea, in front of him. I liked the tiny movements he made, and how the wrinkles on his face created ridges along his cheeks and jaw. Some mornings I crouched there for a good twenty mintues before my knees locked and I had to stand up and stretch, just to realise I was running late to school after all. And some mornings I could swear he knew I was there, even though he couldn't see me. Or maybe I was going a bit mad – that's what my mom said. In the afternoon I'd help her in the garden and I'd tell her about what Mr. Chomsky had done and worn that morning and she'd roll her eyes and look at me in a "What in the world is wrong with you?" way before resuming her fussying around the Italian honeysuckles in the corner of the vegetable patch.

I'd never liked the Italian honeysuckles. They looked pretty, but the smell was overwhelming and so sickly sweet it seemed to stick to the inside of my nose for hours. In the summers they were full of bees and wasps and I used to secretly wish that they'd suck the stupid flowers so dry that they'd wither. But they never did, no matter how hard I tried to quietly get my message across to the bees, by staring at them from my spot beneath the plum tree. The plum tree I liked though. It had been there for as long as I could remember, and had been just big enough for me and my friends to climb when we were younger. As I grew the tree stopped growing and after a while climbing to the top was neither a thrill or a challenge anymore. So I picked a spot in the shade right next to the tree trunk to just sit and ponder (and talk to bees) in those humid afternoons. When the summer started turning into fall the tree had pitch bleeding and oozing from tiny cracks in the bark here and there, and before thinking I'd lean back against the trunk and get my hair stuck in it. I didn't mind though. I carefully peeled it off and held it up to the sun to see the light play inside the sticky amber lump. My mom had told me long ago that before there was bubble gum, kids used to scrape the sugary golden goo off the trees and chew it. I tried it once, but it didn't taste like much at all. It smelled good though. A little bit like the Italian honeysuckle, heavy and sweet, but in a nice way. If it hadn't made it so messy, I wouldn't have minded it being stuck in my hair.

~

I liked running along the space between the street and the sidewalk on my way to school. It was filled with gravel (probably supposed to be covered with asphalt at some point) and I liked the rythmic sound of pebbles shifting around every time I set my foot down. There were two roads to choose from, to get from my house to the school. Neither was very long but I preferred the slightly longer one, simply because no one else did. I liked getting there on my own so that I could run, instead of walking together with class mates and having to discuss football games and TV shows. I had a lot of friends but I didn't like them. And of course – my way was the way past the town square and Mr. Chomsky's shop.

I used to wonder if he was lonely, and if – in that case – he enjoyed it, like I did.
Maybe he too had friends, like the old men playing chess in the library basement on tuesdays, but maybe he preferred staying in his shop, alone. In all the time I'd spent watching him there had never been anyone besides Chomsky himself in the shop. No customers, no signs of employees or family. I thought I could see his lips moving some times and I wondered if maybe he was talking to someone that i couldn't see, behind the curtains by the desk, or if he was just singing or talking to himself. I noted all these details and I organized and thought them through at night in my bed. I wanted to know what his mind was like. If it was anything like mine. Something about that old owl of a man just made me curious. I liked him and I wondered if he'd like me, maybe even let me bring another stool to put next to his and have tea - or soup, whatever it was - with him in the mornings. But how did one go around befriending strange old men? I'd never really befriended anyone on purpose, so I wouldn't know. Neither did I know what it was about him that I liked. Maybe it was the wrinkles, or the kittens on his tea (or soup) cup.

When school ended for the summer, I didn't really have a reason anymore to run into town and crouch in the street by the clock shop. My mom asked for all kinds of help around the house and my friends came over every day without asking, to play in my garden and in the plum tree, even though the thrill of climbing it was gone. I was too polite to ask them to leave, and in any case the sun was so scorching hot I didn't much feel like leaving my spot beneath the tree, and the jug of ice cold lemonade. On Fridays though, I went to my aunt's house for dinner, so that my mom could invite her book circle over and have some "peace and quiet".

Not that I ever made much of a ruckus, but I guess she thought I needed to get out of the house, or maybe she just wanted me to spend more time with my aunt, whom I'd always liked. Her hair was a frizzy, fiery, ginger mess, and she wore big, peculiar ear rings that she crafted herself from scraps of metal. She was never unkind to me, and she smelled like bourbon and cigar smoke. "You're so scrawny. Are you one of those damn vegans?" she asked me in her scratchy voice, and I said I didn't know what that meant. When she'd explained to me, between the sips of whiskey, I said that I liked her chicken pot pie way too much to be one of those vegans. And that was true, even though when I thought about it, I did feel a bit sad for the animals.