Packages are sent to Repose's residents. They all contain pieces of
the same timepiece, albeit in different colors:
The clock is small, just six inches high. Its shell and its clockwork are beautifully engraved with guilloche, shimmering as they're turned under the light. This effect, achieved by wheel-engraving metal and flooding it with enamel, creates a uniform ripple as pure as water in a pond.
Who owned it? Who commissioned it? The name on the face says 'Cartier,' but ask them after the serial number and the records, while proving its authenticity, are blank. Purchased by no one, commissioned by no one, and yet it exists - in pieces, but all too tangible.
It comes in colors, it does - in canary yellow, yes, but also in deep-sea blue, in lavender, soft as the Provence countryside, in the green of new grasses, starry black, or red as rouged cheeks, and more and more. It whispers of luxury - of an age where it was a gift from someone to someone else, or a warning of the passage of time. Where it was a treasured heirloom, or a valued investment, or a casual expense. Who can say? It is about one hundred years old, or appears to be. Edwardian edging into Art Deco, clean lines and geometry but lovely script numbers. The little knob on top is made of ivory, and it winds the hands, which are embellished with tiny mine-cut diamonds.
Rich and fabulous and spotless - not a chip in the enamel, not a speck of dust under the glass. When together, it whirs fabulously.
But now it is apart, in pieces. It will not whir again, unless it is made perfectly, perfectly whole.