The saga continues.

*(All characters, places, ideas are copy righted by me)

                                  The Dream...

                                 2:  The Professor and his daughter

   Professor Dot was a learned man of many interests. Besides his amazing garden of many different exotic plants and flowers (botany was one of his many interests) he was one of the few citizens of Dreamsland that would actually talk to Trimese and knew many things because he had read so much. He was probably the smartest person in Dreamsland but had the ability to fit in simply because he had learned to grow an extremely nice garden and on outside appearances appeared to be a normal.  On the inside of his cottage and on the inside of the Professor it was quite different. He was anything but normal.

 On the outside though he was somewhat still handsome, although he was now middle aged. He had a slight pudgy belly and wore glasses that he was constantly pushing back up the bridge of his nose. It was almost a nervous tick about him but had become a habit from years of practice.  He was a contradiction in terms because of his brilliant mind and everything about him was ordered and cluttered at the same time and somehow managed to share the same space.

  He was named Heratio Dobson, but at a very young age had been nicknamed “Dot” and it had stuck and now everyone call him that, except the official at City Hall and the University where he use to teach.  He was semi-retired now spending most of his time still doing his odd little research and private studies in and around his home. But would make the occasional jaunt up to the “big house”. 

  Besides, there was the care of his young daughter Leah, who lived with him. Truth was Leah (who was now growing into a fine young lady) was taking care of him. Leah was a sweet young woman who was one of the only other people in Dreamsland that gave Trimese the time of day and learned at an early age not to judge people by their appearances or their gardens.  Everyone was the same in her eyes.  She had learned that from her father, the professor. Not only was he her dad but he was also her teacher.                 Professor Dot had lost his wonderful wife years ago and the tragedy was never mentioned any more, but she too was a upstanding citizen of Dreamsland before she passed away, and was known all over the parts as a “fine lady” who knew how to raise a beautiful garden and had some of the most wonderful vegetables in the whole area. People were amazed by her skills of growing things.

  “Yeah, the professor will know what to do”, said Toe as Trimese made his way down the steps of the Great Blue Hill.

  “I’m sure of it”, agreed Tac.

  “Yep” chirped in Tic.

  As they finally made it down to the bottom they headed up the track to the other side of the oval walkway where the Professor’s cottage was. As Trimese approached he noted that the Professors cottage was slightly different from all the other cottages by the strange apparatus that were on top of his roof and the other unusual items placed through out his yard.  Wind socks and sunray catchers and all kinds of other wonderful things that the normal citizens would never mess with. But to the Professor they were important in helping him continue his studies. He some how managed to keep a fine little garden though, and even managed to produce some unusual vegetables.

  His neighbors put up with his eccentric behavior simply because he was a learned man, and was respected for his many years of service in the employment of  the City Elders. And besides he had taught many of the citizens’ children along with his own daughter.

  Trimese didn’t see him or his daughter in the yard as they approached and went through the front gate and up the sidewalk to his front door.  On his front door there was a welcome sign hanging on a nail underneath the tiny window and a brass knocker below that.

  Tac reached up and tapped the brass knocker on the door. “Tap, tap, tap”, it went.

  After a moment the Professor appeared at the window and looked out at them and immediately smiled.

  He opened the door and held out his hands “Welcome Trimese”, the professor said, “So good to see you”. 

  “And what do I have the honor of this visit?” he continued.  “Come in, come in…”

  With that Trimese went inside. It took him a moment to adjust his eyes from the brightness of the midday’s sun to the darker quarters inside. As he step from the entrance way into the front room his eyes began to notice all kinds of interesting gadgets, books, strange collectibles, rolls of paper and other bundles all over the place. The best you could describe it was that there was an ordered chaos to the mess. Somehow everything had a place and everything seem to fit even though it all seemed random to the outside eye.  About that time Leah came in from another room to greet Trimese.

   Trimese forgot how beautiful Leah was.  He secretly had a crush on her and had had one for many years. She was about his age, maybe a year or two younger and they both had grown up in private studies together.  She was always so kind to Trimese. They had spent many a wonderful time in playing and running around and pretending to be other people. Trimese too had long lost his parents just as Leah had lost her mother and so there was that bond between them. She found all three of the brothers charming and had learned a long time ago to over look his unusualness.  In fact she felt that made him unique and special. He certainly felt that around her.  He almost blushed when she came into the room.

   Toe blurted out “Why Leah, I certainly look beautiful today” when she approached which made everyone in the room laugh.

  “You certainly do Toe” Leah agreed without missing a beat.

 “Oh brother” Tic said as he rolled his eyes. As he did Tac remembered himself and reached his hand out to shake hers as he looked at her intently and smiled. She looked back at him and smiled back. She had such a nice smile. Toe blushed even more.

  “So fellows” the Professor finally spoke up, “what brings you here?”

  With that it brought back the seriousness of their visit and why they were there.

 “Please, have a seat” Leah motioned them to sit on the couch.  They all found chairs and moved the various books and other papers that were in their way and sat down. For a moment there was a silence as Trimese looked at both the Professor and Leah and then at each other.

  “Well…” Dot said.

 “Professor, have you ever noticed clouds in the sky?” Tac finally asked.

 “In Dreamsland…never. Not to my knowledge.” “ Why no, why do you ask?” he replied. One of his eyebrows rose up slightly in deep thought. “Hmmm” he pondered.

 “Well what about The Wisdom Clock?” Tic said, looking at the professor intently. “How much do you know about it?”

 “Yeah” blurted in Toe. “Have you noticed anything strange about it lately?”

 “What’s wrong with the clock?” Leah leaned forward. Her eyes got bigger. 

 The professor looked over at his daughter for a moment and then looked at Trimese.

 “Yes, what is wrong with the clock?” “What are you going on about?” he asked.

 “You better had go look at it professor” Tac replied.

 With that the professor grabbed a pair of binoculars that he had invented that he often used to watch birds with and stepped outside to go take a quick look.  They all piled out the door behind him as he walked down his sidewalk to his gate and pointed his binoculars towards the direction of the clock. The rest of them looked off in that direction too. After adjusting them in his hands the professor finally focus them to his satisfaction and stared in amazement and horror at what he saw through the lens. The Clock was slightly leaning over and looked tired. He knew right away that this was a bad sign.

Then he noticed the clouds and pointed his binoculars in that direction as well and readjusted them to take a closer looked. After a few moments he lowered them and ran past everyone back into his cottage. And everyone quickly followed.

  There was a barrage of questions from everyone as they all made it into the living room again. The professor was not paying any attention to them though as he fumbled through everything, through all the stacks of books lying about everywhere.  He was looking for a certain book, a book on the history of the clock.

  “I know it’s here somewhere”, he mumbled to himself. “Where is that darn book at?”

 “What professor?” “What does it mean?” “What’s up with the clouds?” “Can you fix it?” the questions came on top of one another as they all watched the professor fumbling about.

  “Ah…” he finally said, “here it is”. He reached down and found a very old book with an interesting leather type cover buried in one stack.   He quickly propped it on a table and flung it open and turned through the pages until he found the place he was looking for.

 “Let’s see”, he sort of mumbled to himself as he read the text, turning page after page. After a moment he was off, looking for another book and again went through the same process of flinging it down on the table and looking through it until he found what he was looking for. This went on for several minutes.

 The rest of them stood in anticipation waiting to see what he would tell them when he finished.

 “Well?” they all sort of exclaimed.

 The professor finally closed the last book and stared off into the distance as if in deep thought.  There was a moment of silence as they all stood and stared at the professor.

  “It appears, from everything that I’ve read, everything that is known…” he trailed off for a moment still in deep thought.

 “Yes?” they all seem to say in unison as they all leaned forward for the rest of it.

 “It appears that the Clock is running down”, he said as he looked back at them. “In fact, from what I can tell the clock is supposed to be rewound once a decade”.

 “And?” Trimese and Leah both piped in.

 “Best that I can gather from my information” the professor continued, “ is that the weather, the storm that is quickly approaching is somehow related to the clock”.  “To it’s running down”.

  They all looked at the floor for a moment, deep in thought.

 “But that’s not the worst of it”, the professor said as he pushed up the glasses on his nose.  They all looked back at him.

  “Apparently the clock must be rewound every 10 years to keep it going.” “And according to my documents it has been 9 years, and 11 and a half months since the last known time that it was wound up.”

  “Well, then lets go get the guy who does that and get him to wind the clock up again.” Tic said suddenly. Toe scratched his head as he thought about it.

  “It’s not that simple Tic”, replied the professor. “This is not an ordinary clock, you must understand”, the professor continued. “You can’t just rewind it like you could your alarm clock”. “You have to be specially trained for this sort of thing.” “That clock is magical and messing with it and doing the wrong thing, turning the wrong pin could end in disaster”. “The guy that did that, the last trained person who knows how to fix clocks, and specifically, how to rewind THE CLOCK was Conner O’Conner.”

“And?” Tac said.

“Conner O’Conner died 5 years ago,” the professor looked at them all very seriously. “He died before he had a chance to pass along that knowledge to someone else.” “There IS no one else in Dreamsland that knows how to fix clocks or how to rewind them, not even myself.”