Transmission

Time Turner was a fairly average stallion, if serious and sometimes unfun.

He built clocks, he repaired them, and he appraised them.

For some odd reason, the citizens of Ponyville needed their clocks repaired every other week. Or it was the nobles of Canterlot needing a new timepiece to match whatever style was in that week. Maybe an avant-garde designer in Manehattan needed a base to build something off of, and only wanted it on one particular day and delivered at one particular time.

Right now, his attention was focused on the door, waiting for something, anything, to happen. There hadn't been any business at all that day, and a thought had said "just close up shop, there won't be any business, not today or tomorrow".

Then his gaze traveled to the newspaper he had picked up that morning. The publisher was in Canterlot, but they accepted stories from anywhere. Most of them were hoaxes, but the one that involved Sapphire Shores enjoying that show about the things called "humans" was confirmed.

Right now, as he flipped through the pages, one story caught his eye.

ANOMALY SIGHTED IN SKY

Hm. That could've been interesting.

Unfortunately, a pony named Lyra burst in, breathing so ragged Turner could've mistaken it for the old moth eaten vest in his closet. Not that he cared about that vest. He never much liked vests.

Right now, his attention was on the unicorn panting and mumbling and trying to breath. Of course, what could she have gotten so worried about this time... Probably that DJ Pon-3 character coming to the town, but Lyra didn't look happy.

She looked scared. Really scared. Not the "ohmigosh I saw a spider" scared but "ohmigosh what is that" scared.

He took a deep breath.

Then he threw the newspaper at Lyra. That knocked some sense into her.

She looked at Turner with wide eyes, then calmed down. Her mouth was open, trying to stutter out words, but Turner held up a hoof to shut her up.

It was deadpan when he spoke. "If you're going to panic, you can do it where the public can see you. Otherwise I might get arrested."

Lyra nodded. Turner always liked his deadpan voice. He could do well as an actor, maybe a lemony narrator, but clocks had been his calling.

Or was it wasting time? He couldn't tell.

Either way, Lyra walked out the door, allowing Turner to get back to reading his newspaper.

ANOMALY SIGHTED IN SKY

Turner hummed.

Then he got to the part saying that sightings of odd creatures, along with pictures, had been sent in.

"Now that's a bunch of lies," he muttered, looking at the grainy picture. It looked like a minotaur, save for the lack of horns and straight legs, but that was it. For all he knew it was just photo editing.

And the image of the "anomaly" in the sky? It just looked like a ship from that one science fiction series with the evil alien conglomerate or whatever, on the side of the ponies. He never much got that, how the ponies in those stories were always victorious even though they were far out of their league.

He much preferred non-fiction. Fiction had to be believable.

What time is it, he thought. A glance at the clock told him. Fifteen seconds until noon.

At fourteen seconds, he had ear protection in. State of the art, acquired from the factories of the Griffon Republic.

At ten seconds, his papers were secured. Orders, requests, doodles, notes, all of those and more.

At five seconds, the bars were over his windows. He could remember the first time this happened, how the windows had blown out and scattered glass all over that mare with the cowpony hat and orange coat.

At two seconds, he was in the backroom. Parts of everything loomed at him, secured in little metal boxes or hanging loose.

At point five seconds, he whistled. Not a particularly loud whistle, just a little tune he thought of. Impulsive, really.

A resounding DING went through the building, shaking dust from the ceiling. A chorus of smaller dongs, some sounding before or after the main group.

Such was the joy of being a clockmaker.

Turner muttered underneath his breath, then returned to his desk. He'd have to clean it up later, but for now, he just swept the dust off the counter.

That was the disadvantage of living and working with clocks, especially with skill like his.  At noon and midnight, that would happen. It'd happen until every single clock was out of sync with each other.

The chances of that happening in his lifetime were minimal. That was a curse and a blessing. Being such a skilled clockmaker.

He sighed, then laid his head down on the counter. Oh thoughts of taking a nap tugged at him, whispering and murmuring and sighing, trying to get him to let his eyes go boop and then he'd be drooling. Hm. Maybe he could remember that wonderful idea for a clock...

No! He had a job to do. He could nap when it was the weekend. Weekends were for napping, he had decided.

There was a buzz, coming from just outside his window.

He glanced in that direction, but only saw a flittering black shape. Looked like a beetle, if a large one. Maybe he could lend it over to Snails. He liked bugs, right? That sounded correct in his mind. Snails and bugs weren't too far apart, were they? They were both slimy. Or was that snails?

Either way, it left an odd feeling in the back of his mind.

Meh, he'd figure that out later.

A minute passed, the sounds of normal Ponyville life resuming in the wake of the massive wave of sound coming from his tiny shop.

Another half hour passed. The mailmare arrived, dropping off the mail that was addressed to him. How a pegasus with eyes like hers managed to fly was beyond him. Very nice, polite too, with a bubbly personality. Didn't she have a daughter? Yeah, that sounded about right. He'd go visit her the next chance he got.

Turner wasn't very good with remembering who was who.

The rest of the day was boring. Turner packed up at six o'clock exactly.

Such was the joy of making clocks.