Tempus 

by Meloncholyway 

This is my first story. Feedback will be much appreciated at
meloncholyway@hotmail.com 

Disclaimer: I don't own the character. Don't sue me because the only thing
of value I have is my 1971 Buick Riviera and you're not getting it :) 

	 

  

	Constable Turnbull stood guard outside his consulate, just as he
had the day before, and the day before that. The cool fall air nipped
lightly at the tips of his fingers. He knew that Constable Fraser exulted
in this promise of snow, becoming more enthusiastic as the weather got
colder, but Turnbull did not. The shorter days and cooler weather seemed
to him a warning. A silent alarm that only the birds and the old people
heeded. They always flew south at this time of the year. Turnbull wished
he could fly, too.  

	Later, alone in his apartment, Turnbull put in his Tracy Jenkins
CD. He was hungry for the comfort the music always seemed to bring him.
But tonight the words seemed shallow, the twang and drawl more than he
could bear. Tracy Jenkins was singing country, but everything in Renfield
Turnbull sang the blues. He shut off the CD player and sat in silence. He
glanced around. The four walls of his small studio apartment suddenly
seemed confining. He decided to take a walk. He rode the elevator down and
walked through the lobby. As soon as he stepped outside, a shocking blast
of cold air swept over him. The chill penetrated deep down into his spine.
Shivering, he contemplated the city around him. His apartment was deep in
downtown Chicago. The streets were narrow. Tall, ill kempt buildings
loomed on either side. It was possible to see the sky if one looked
straight up. Turnbull felt vaguely troubled looking up night after night
into a sky devoid of stars. He looked down instead, studying the cracked
and broken sidewalk. Like everything else in this older section of the
city, the sidewalk here was in disrepair.  

	Turnbull walked just quickly enough to ward off the chill. He
shoved his hands deeply into the pockets of his jacket and walked
steadily, with no destination in mind. He wasn't paying much attention to
where he was going. After almost an hour, he found himself in a less
familiar part of town. It seemed to be a more prosperous area, the
buildings were cleaner and more people were walking around. As he walked,
he noticed a new sound. It was a rhythmic pounding, faint and distant. It
was such a low pitch, he didn't so much hear it as feel it. He thought it
must be some type of dance club. He'd never in his life been in a dance
club, but the music, the sound was magnetic. He moved in the direction of
the sound. Around a corner. Not quite there yet. The next corner, and he
saw a small sign proclaiming the name of the club.  

	"Tempus," it read. And below this, in much smaller letters,  

	"non vacat flere" and 

	 "maturo opus est"  

It was Latin. He ought to remember it from his class at the academy.
"Tempus" meant time. He didn't remember what the rest meant. He examined
the face of the building. It was brick, solidly built, an attempt at
soundproofing, but the deep rumbling bass leaked out, as if the club
itself had a heartbeat. Below the sign was a door. Turnbull hesitatingly
put out his hand toward the doorknob. His heart beat faster and he opened
the door slowly, not quite sure what to expect. He walked into a narrow
entryway leading to a booth with a large, slightly dingy looking man in
it. The sign above announced that the cover charge was ten dollars. He
supposed that a cover charge was something like admission. The bass was
louder here. He pulled out his wallet. He passed up the pink and blue
bills for the proper green ones, and handed the man two rumpled five
dollar bills. The man nodded silently, and Turnbull went to the door at
the other end. Trembling with excitement at this new experience, he opened
the door and walked in. 

	Instantly the deep bass infiltrated his body. His blood pulsed
with the rhythm of the music. It was dark, sexy. It was pure sensation.
Instinct. There were no words, no singing at all, but the message  

	(dance jump sex desire darkness pain) 

 was perfectly understood by all. 

	The club was a mass of writhing bodies. The whole crowd seemed to
move as one. In perfect time. Turnbull's breath was quite literally
knocked out of his body by the volume of the music. When he regained it,
he found that he could only breath in time with the music  

	(dance jump).  

Two feet inside the door, and he was already in the middle of the crowd.
Dozens of dancing humans drew him in, stronger than the undertow in the
Atlantic, where he almost drowned as a child. He couldn't fight it because
he could only move in time with the music. Could only think in time with
the music. And the music was screaming	

	(sex desire)  

and he could only whisper. 

	The music was commanding 

	(dance jump) 

and his body could not help but obey. He added his whisper to the whisper
of every other human in the room, and together they screamed. Collective
whispers screamed in time with the music. He found himself jumping in time
with the music and the throng of people. He was jostled and bumped and
rubbed, but he was enjoying the body contact. He thought of how long it
had been since another person touched him. A woman in front of him was
pressing her body against him. He didn't even know her, it wasn't the
least bit proper but he didn't care, couldn't care, because the music
wouldn't let him. The music was forcing him  

	(darkness pain) 

to let go, and he did. He let go of his pain and boredom and (most of all)
loneliness. Trapped in the solid mass of people, Turnbull suddenly felt
freer than he ever had in his life. He allowed himself to relax. His tense
clumsiness fell away. He danced with a lithe gracefulness that few who
knew him had ever seen.  

	He looked around the crowd. Here and there, a few people caught
his eye. A slim man in a black turtleneck, head down, totally absorbed in
the music. A woman with short curly hair who danced with her eyes closed
and her hands above her head. On a stage at the far end of the room, a
single man surrounded by complex machinery provided the life-giving music.
His sweat soaked T-shirt read, "maturo opus est," and Turnbull suddenly
remembered that it meant "no time to lose." He felt this to be true. A
dark haired woman to his left caught his eye. He smiled at her. She smiled
back. 

  

	When he left the club, nighttime was changing to morning. Tempus.
The club was aptly named. He hadn't meant to stay so long, but tempus
fugit, time flies. The dark haired woman had danced with him for hours,
and he hadn't cared that he had to work early the next morning. Just
before he left, she had given him a small piece of paper with a phone
number and a name scribbled on it. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket
and looked at it again. He smiled to himself. Suddenly the walk home
didn't seem so long. He glanced at the sky above him and noted, with
pleasure, the appearance of a star.