Leaving the Almost Palindrome City

I hang onto Renner for as long as I can. Then, I curl in a ball, doing my best to protect my crooked face.

Someone, probably Evangelina, eventually calls the police. Renner doesn't struggle when the officers lead him away. He shrugs, as if it's a simple misunderstanding. I'm sure in his mind they all serve the same city.

In its infinite wisdom, a judicial AI that serves in place of a human judge, will decide to give Renner three months of house arrest. Evangelina will be terrified, but I'll scan and re-scan every lousy line of the Palindrome City series. There will be no further mention of the "buxom blonde with the wandering eye," and I'll make sure that means she has escaped Buckminster F. and Renner's grasp.

But I'm skipping ahead.

I wake up in a hospital bed with a robot standing over me.

They always send a robot when it's bad news.

"Good day, sir, you are on the mend from your recent injuries. As for the other matter, we are working on a cure. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer a complimentary corrective—"

"Tell me about the other matter in ten words or fewer."

The robot falls silent for a moment. Whether it's meant to be a dramatic pause or it's simply computing my request, I don't know.

"Glioblastoma. You are terminal. We are working on a cure."

They are always working on a cure. Glioblastoma. Brain cancer. That won't be how I die.

When checking myself out of the hospital, I see Evangelina in the waiting room, sleeping in a chair and still wearing her blue sunglasses.

"I didn't let them change your face" is the first thing she says when I wake her.

When I can talk again, I ask her where she would go if she could go anywhere in the world.

"Iceland," she says without hesitation.

The next few months are private in case anyone is foolish enough to republish Buckminster F.'s Palindrome City series with these missing pages 39–48 included.

Just know that I neglect my clockmaker duties. Sometimes, Evangelina and I will go sit on her favorite bench and laugh maniacally when the 11:00 show starts at 11:17 instead. My face droops, her eye drifts… chaotic heaven.

I return to the clock tower on my own at the appointed hour.

There's a lot that Buckminster F. leaves out.

He leaves out the part about how I melted down all those gold shavings from the peacock clock, and how to fence the gold, I contacted another second-rate villain from the series, a man with the awful name of Ratface Squibbs (who actually turned out to be a decent fellow).

And not all of that gold went into my and Evangelina's joint bank account. Some of it found its way around my finger, and there's a matching ring crossing the Atlantic.

Also, Buckminster F., in his insane quest for perfection, can't handle irrational emotions.

He wouldn't know how to mention the fact that the clockmaker is thinking about when he'll next see Evangelina even as he hears Renner's measured tread coming up the tower's winding staircase.

And where is the symmetry in a crooked clockmaker imagining Evangelina seeing Iceland for the first time while hoping she'll forgive him for lying about how he'd catch the very next flight after doing one last thing at the clock tower?

For all his talk of order, Buckminster F. is sloppy. He left his perfect city unguarded for ten pages, and in those ten pages, a second-rate villain found his salvation.

Right before the clockmaker's final moment, Buckminster F. says, "A squawk sounded in the night." But I can assure you it will not be the clockmaker who squawks.

"You robbed this city of the perfect woman," Renner finally says to announce his presence. "I regret nothing." I stand tilted and tall, trying to block out the moon with the enormity of my existence.

Renner's mouth moves but no sound comes out. Does he know how many more like me Buckminster F. has lined up for him?

Two identical tears run down his chiseled cheekbones at the exact same speed, but there's nothing I can do except mouth his next line to him.

"Looks like you're out of time, clockmaker."

Renner sobs, and it sounds like…

"A squawk sounded in the night as the crooked clockmaker plummeted headfirst to the pavement below, became just another blemish on the sidewalk to be wiped clean from Palindrome City as it marched ever closer to pristine perfection."