The Timekeeper

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I hadn't left my room in days, nor had I spoken to anyone other than my mother. My phone was constantly buzzing beside my pillow, but I refused to answer it. I knew I was being foolish, ignoring everyone, but I didn't know what else to do. I just kept repeating Dr. Creswell's explanation in my head, trying to make sense of it all. But no matter how many times I replayed that day, I still couldn't believe any of it was real. I wanted it all to be a dream, but it wasn't. The truth was, the Timekeeper was a useless device that we all now had stuck within our skin.

I could hear the sound of the Television from downstairs, although I wish I couldn't. I was positive my mother had turned the volume up just so I could hear it from my bedroom. One of the voice's speaking belonged to a woman, while the other belonged to Dr. Creswell. It was easy to tell, seeing as he was trying to explain to the woman, and the whole country, what had happened with the Timekeeper's. I pulled the blankets over my head, attempting to drone out his voice, but unfortunately it did nothing but make it harder for me to breathe.

"So, I think the question everybody wants to know here is, what does the Timekeeper actually do? You know, seeing as it doesn't actually find our soul mate." The woman asked.

"Well, you see they are quite sophisticated devices." Dr. Creswell began; barely paying any attention to the awful way the woman was talking to him. "When we began designing them, we created them with a matching pair. We made it so that the two matching Timekeeper's would begin a countdown until they would reunite, using very advanced scientific technology. Obviously the matching pairs were then split up and given to two people, who would then become 'soul mates'."

"I see," the woman said, before continuing. "What you're really saying is that we are just matched up with any random person, anywhere in the world? That who we're paired with complete strangers and no thought at all goes into that? There's no connection or matching done to make it seem like the two people are actually soul mates?"

As the woman questioned Dr. Creswell, I realised that she sounded quite similar to me. I had bombarded him with question after question, and even then I didn't believe him, I didn't even want to try. He had spent probably all of his life working on a device that did nothing for us at all, and yet he was perfectly fine with that. How you could live with such a lie was beyond me, I definitely wouldn't be able to do it.

"Technically, no, but we do factor in age and gender and sometimes a person's place of living to try and get the best results for the matching pair. Then once the pair is matched, the mind begins to believe that your pair is, in fact, who you're meant to be with, and that's how the statistics of Timekeeper love are so high."

"So, you're saying that it's just mind over matter then? Our soul mate is chosen by our minds?"

"Yes and no." Dr. Creswell answered. I waited for him to elaborate on the second part of his answer, but he didn't.

"Dr. Creswell, how do you explain the Timekeeper's control over the body?" The woman asked then. She was staying relatively calm throughout the interview, unlike Jase and I. But how were you supposed to stay calm when you are told that the one thing you've learned about and grown up around and are supposed to trust turns out to be a lie? Of course Jase and I were mad, but so was the whole country. There had been riots outside the Timekeeper factories and headquarters already, and that was just the beginning of the chaos. Employers had closed their businesses until further notice, schools had shut down, and half the town was deserted.

"Well," Dr. Creswell began before clearing his throat, "it's as we've always said. The Timekeeper connects to your brain and nervous system, where it then can control your body's movements and lead you towards your pair. We never lied about that."