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                              The Big Tick

                           by Ross Rocklynne




  _The watch warned him, unceasingly. It was driving him insane, but
  he had to escape that smug, certain death._




“I called you in from your desk, Davidge, because frankly, I’m
disappointed in your work.”

Edward Cobber’s smooth cold hands arranged the papers on his desk in
precise squared order. He was, indeed, a precise man in all ways. His
office was as perfect as the right angle could make it. Furniture
avoided corners. Pictures hung straight. No item in the room was guilty
of a hypotenuse. He laid his arms along the flat arms of his erect
chair, looking straight into the eyes of the huddled man facing him.

Some of the perceptive keenness that had made Davidge one of the best
sales managers in the agency showed in the proud lift of his graying
head.

“I’ve waited to discuss it for a long time, sir,” he said.

“There seems to be very little to discuss, Davidge,” remarked the
younger man, as he frowningly flipped papers. “Here’s the July sales
report. What do you suppose Mr. Watkins will say about the steady
decline in sales? What? And July should have been a good month, a very
good month.

“Then look at this pusher-letter you sent Manning. I’m terribly
disappointed, Davidge, terribly. Manning’s a good boy. Makes a very
fine showing. But we don’t tell him that, do we? It took the fine edge
off his work. Really, Davidge, after eleven years in this office. How
can I ever explain this to Mr. Watkins?”

“If you’ll allow me to tell you—” said Davidge.

“Yes?”

Davidge was normally a quiet, hunched man of persistent, driving
energy. He said, dully, “It’s my watch, sir.”

He drew a thick gold timepiece from his vest pocket.

“It belonged to my father. Don’t you hear it—tick, sir?”

Cobber experienced a deep revulsion when he observed that Davidge’s
thick-browed eyes were wide and anxiously staring.

“Hear it tick? Yes.”

“It’s not—loud?”

“_Loud?_”

Davidge smiled, a tired, haggard smile that fitted very well with the
deep corrugations around his mouth.

“It’s loud. Like a velvet-covered hammer beating against ice. Muted
but clear. A heavy pounding, sometimes a thud like your own heart-beat
amplified. And it’s been going on for six weeks, sir.

“I don’t know what started it, sir, where it came from. But I know
it began six weeks ago—six weeks ago today. That was on June 18, the
day I brought in the Spurling account. Mr. Watkins—well, Mr. Watkins
congratulated me personally on the deal, if you’ll remember.”

A tight little swelling came and went in Cobber’s brown throat. “Of
course. It seemed best to let you take the credit.”

Davidge nodded. “Thank you, sir. Anyway, that was the day it started.
The big tick. When I got to my apartment it suddenly started. I didn’t
believe it at first. I laughed. And then I was going around the
apartment with my head in my hands. I thought I was insane. I missed
my wife more then than any time in the six years she’s been gone. Oh,
I came out of it after a while. I buried the watch under some pillows.
That muffled it. And I made other tests. It obeyed the laws of sound.
Giving it the scientific treatment, you understand.”

He laughed bitterly. “But after a week, I knew there wasn’t any
explaining it. Nobody else heard it. The big tick. I—I guess my work
began to be affected.”

Cobber could hardly bear to meet Davidge’s harrowed eyes. Everything in
him that demanded the clean ponderables involving perpendicular lines
was incensed by the stumbling fantasy this strange person was telling.
Men and words should stand erect. When they didn’t, those nearby must
perform the indignity of leaning to understand.

“Perhaps,” said Cobber, “You should have let the watch run down.”

“I did, sir.”

“Or leave it at home while you were at work.”

“I did, sir.” In the shadowed craters of his eyes his agony swam.

“And still you heard this so-called ‘big tick’?”

Davidge’s chest rose in a deep grasp at air.

“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to believe, sir. The watch was an
obsession. I had to wear it. I had to keep it wound. I had to know if
it was ticking big. Or if it wasn’t. And I had to know if the rest of
the office force heard it. I never could quite believe they didn’t. I
would have given anything if they had.”

To have to sit here and see Davidge withering this way.

Cobber rose.

“Davidge,” he said, his voice earnest, “a good deal of my life
I’ve lived to a pattern. I haven’t done badly. No bad habits, no
irregularities. At least, Mr. Watkins entrusts me to handle his
business. That’s why I think I’m qualified to give you advice. Your
private life, of course, should be none of my business—” Davidge
interrupted almost vehemently.

“I don’t drink, sir! I don’t run around.” He collapsed again, rubbing
the back of his furry hand over his wet forehead. “I’ve never done
things to excess, sir. That’s why I’ve come to think—”

“Well?”

“You’ve heard, sir, of the sands of time—running out? For a while now
I’ve felt that the loud tick of my watch is a warning that I don’t have
much time—that when the ticking stops I’ll stop too—”

“I see.” A hard knot grew in Cobber’s stomach. He felt ill. To have to
stand here and see a mind decompose. At least, it told him what he had
to do.

“Davidge,” he said, staring straight past those anxious eyes.
“Davidge—. See here, old man.” Cobber sat down heavily. “Davidge,” he
said slowly, “take a month off. With full pay, of course. And then, if
your position is still vacant—”

The thought stood alone for Davidge to examine as he wished. Davidge
seemed to crumble. Then he dragged himself erect, staring at the
gold watch which he still held in his hand. He let it slip from his
fingers to the rug. He walked slowly out of the room, in much the same
spiritless way he had come in.

Thoughtfully Cobber picked up the watch, placing it absently on his
desk, in precise line with the onyx paper weight.

       *       *       *       *       *

Davidge died that evening on his way home. The car was just turning the
corner when Davidge stumbled over the curb. It wasn’t a heavy blow, but
when the crowd gathered, Davidge’s eyes were already glazed. Cobber
heard it from his secretary the next morning. For several minutes he
sat precisely erect, reviewing what Davidge told him the day before.

For Davidge, the “big tick” had ceased.

Cobber couldn’t quite get Davidge off his mind. He was annoyed that he
should feel guilty. He hated to think that Davidge, having been eased
out of the firm, hadn’t had his mind on his surroundings, and so had
stumbled into the path of the car.

But that was ridiculous. What had happened was that Davidge had
acquired the psychopathic notion that a watch was ticking his life
away. _(As, indeed, do not all watches tick our lives away?)_ To lend
more weight to the fantasy of the “big tick,” Davidge imagined that
when the ticking stopped he in turn would stop.

In order to stop the maddening tick of his watch, Davidge had
unconsciously committed suicide.

Cobber breathed more easily. He quickly decided to place the watch
with Davidge’s belongings, and to return it to his estate. He kept on
putting this off, however. He did not know why. Nor did he know exactly
why he kept the watch wound, except that his precise habits made it
impossible to abide a man or machine that didn’t function.

       *       *       *       *       *

Months passed. Then, one morning, Cobber came into his office and the
watch was ticking big. At first, Cobber thought men were working in the
street. Then he understood. The light of the sun seemed to fluctuate in
a great blanketing motion, like the leaf of a great book turning over.
He opened the drawer where the watch was kept. The big tick sounded
like steady blows on a muted anvil.

Instantly Cobber knew Davidge as he had never known any other man in
his life.

He knew that this was the sound Davidge had so hopelessly tried to
explain to him. He understood what Davidge had gone through.

He knew that he, Cobber, would run the same gauntlet—if he let
himself. He, Cobber, must therefore never, after this, allow himself
to believe that this monstrous swinging _tingk! tongk!_ ever occurred,
either actually or as the result of a devil’s trick played on him by
subterranean conscience.

He must immediately get rid of the watch.

Immediately!

Cobber walked to the window, shoved it open, held the watch over
emptiness. He would drop it smashing to the street three stories below.

Then a wavering weakness descended on him. He might hurt somebody.

Cobber put the watch in his pocket. It seemed to have increased in
weight as a result of its peculiarity. He went into the street,
intending to drop the watch into a city waste receptacle.

Each time he attempted this, he imagined that somebody was watching him.

He passed in front of a moving street car, with the idea of letting the
watch fall into the grooved track. A youngster on skates was watching
him from the curb. He knew the youngster would run out and try to get
the watch. He kept the watch clutched in his hand. Chilled to the bone,
he decided to return to the office.

As he started back across the street, he stepped quickly back toward
the curb and felt his heart give a great crash against his chest. His
body trembled. For a second he imagined a heavy car turning the corner.
There was none. He bit his lips until tears came to his eyes. A few
moments later he was safely at his desk.

The big tick was so prominent in his ears that he was unable to
dictate. He dismissed his secretary. With an effort he pulled
himself together. He cleared his desk, cleaned out drawers until the
superficial trivia of his surroundings were neatly squared off.

Then he sat precisely erect, smoothing his hair and resting his arms
laxly on the arms of his chair. He now retreated into his intellect,
the place from which he could best defend himself.

Obviously, he had a guilt complex about Davidge’s death. He had
manufactured that uncanny _tingk! tongk!_ as proof that Davidge had
been telling the truth, that it was the watch which had foretold his
death. That would relieve Cobber of responsibility.

Obviously, reasoned Cobber, he was imagining the whole thing. When he
left work that evening, the watch remained in his desk drawer. He would
leave it there. Nothing would make him return for it. He was strong. He
was not like Davidge.

But as he pressed in the clutch of his car, hot torment poured through
him.

To know if the big tick was sounding. To _know_! He returned to the
office. But even before he opened the door, he heard it.

He fled.

Somewhere, soon, death lay in wait for him. Near a street corner, as it
had for Davidge. In a collision. Somewhere along the precise, ordered
path of his life, he would meet it.

That night he did not sleep, but lay awake in the haunting silence.

“You’ve heard, sir,” Davidge said, “of the sands of time running out?”

Cobber’s hands clutched his pillow.

In the morning, a rare silence filled the office. Cobber’s heart
leaped. With a gesture obscenely animal, he pulled open the drawer. The
watch was there.

Slowly, the abysmal truth dawned. He sagged to a seat, wet forehead
supported by the tips of his fingers. Very well. He had forgotten to
wind the watch. He would leave it unwound.

For an hour he endured it. The silence. The not-knowing that had
plagued Davidge before him. Then he wound the watch. The big ticking
resumed after a moment, and then slid into the steady beating of a
hammer crashing through his skull. And at last he understood why he
could not make himself dispose of the watch. It was meant to warn him.
As long as the big tick sounded, he was in mortal danger.

He must somehow stop the big tick.

Davidge had stopped it by dying. That was not the way. And now a cool
wind of triumph blew through his brain. Davidge had accepted his
destiny. Cobber would make no such mistake. He had six weeks—the same
time that was given Davidge. He needed only to get past the grim death
factor hidden somewhere in the next six weeks’ mesh of events.

The precisely patterned life of Edward Cobber now proceeded according
to a scheme that confounded his associates. He frequently arrived
late—or early.

He was quite apt to leave the office for minutes or hours at a time. If
he missed an important call at these times, he smiled with tight-lipped
satisfaction. Perhaps, by default, he had stayed on this side of the
line beyond which lay death.

The watch, which he carried always, ticked on.

He took several physical examinations. He was fit. Was the watch
warning him of accidental death? Perhaps. Considering this, he indulged
in the most unexpected reversals of decision. With deliberately
impolite excuses, for instance, he changed important luncheon dates to
three o’clock cocktail-bar meetings.

He was not a drinking man, but that, too, was part of his battle
against the charted future. Walking across an intersection, it became
habitual for him to reverse directions, without warning to himself and
much less to Fate. On one such occasion, he had no sooner pivoted on
one heel than a speeding car whizzed through the space he had occupied.

He knew he would have been killed in the collision.

But when the buzzing fright in his ears abated, his disappointment was
profound and dizzying. He heard the clear _tingk! tongk!_ of Davidge’s
watch. For the rest of the morning he was unable to do more than stare
unseeingly at the sales reports and rather meager order blanks his
disturbed secretary placed on his desk.

He continued to choose erratic routes home. He angered his wife by
staying out late or all night. Often he arrived at work looking the
worse for wear, a condition which had his staff buzzing.

Cobber, however, was satisfied. The weeks were passing. Somewhere along
the way, perhaps often, he was neatly sidestepping his grim opponent.
Statistically, his chances were getting better every day. Finally the
six weeks would be gone and the big tick would cease.

It was on the very last day of those six weeks, the first day of May,
that Edward Cobber came to realize his blunder.

May the first. Tomorrow it would be over. He would be alive or dead. He
would have remained home in a state of perfect stasis if it was not for
his wife’s nagging presence. But he went to the office.

He sat before his desk, in a kind of rigid blankness. If he could live
through today. If he could exist past the hour of five o’clock, when
Davidge had died. He made an attempt to return to his squared-off
thinking. He straightened in his chair. He laid his arms along the arms
of his chair. He planted his feet firmly.

Now. He would stay here the rest of the day, unmoving.

Nothing could touch him.

The interoffice communicator buzzed. There was a shearing away of the
sharpened corners of his thoughts. The wind of fear droned through his
brain.

“Mr. Watkins to see you, sir,” said his secretary softly. And at once
Cobber realized the cyclic nature of events, the inevitable frustration
of man against time.

Watkins coming to see him. Watkins, who came to see him not more than
twice a year.

Today was not the last day. It was the only day. There had never been
another.

The big tick of Davidge’s watch seemed to heighten until its echoes
pounded through the room. A nauseous lightheadedness gripped Cobber as
the door opened. Almost he saw Davidge, as he had stood in that same
doorway not many weeks before. It was, however, Watkins—and the cycle
had made its round.

“Mr. Cobber, I dropped in because, frankly, you’ve given me cause to be
disappointed in your work.”

Cobber knew that, in the nature of things, there was nothing he could
do but try to explain about the watch.




Transcriber’s note:


  This etext was produced from Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy
  September 1953 (Vol. 1, No. 1). Extensive research did not uncover
  any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  Obvious errors have been silently corrected, but minor
  inconsistencies have been retained as printed.

  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
  public domain.
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