the eight thirty-six

The eight thirty-six is the labyrinth's most quietly persistent anomaly. Of the building's seventeen clocks, six are known to stop at twenty-four minutes to nine; of those six, four have been observed to stop at that time on more than one occasion, and two stop at no other time. The remaining clocks behave in the usual manner. No mechanic has been able to give the matter a satisfactory account. The keeper's diary records the eight thirty-six fifty-three times in the years 1894 to 1962, after which the entries become inconsistent.

The six clocks are: the factory clock (which has stopped at 8:36 a total of eighteen times, of which all eighteen are dated to a tuesday); the kitchen wall-clock; the small carriage-clock on the keeper's desk; the longcase in the upper hallway (stops at 8:36 only when the door at the foot of the stairs is left ajar); the clock in the clock room (stops only at 8:36, and at no other time); and the keeper's wristwatch, which is no longer wound and so cannot be counted as an active member of the set.

Three theories have been advanced. The first, the draught theory, holds that a particular draught crossing the building between two open windows is responsible for arresting any pendulum-mechanism in its path; the time 8:36 is then merely the time at which the draught reaches the kitchen and the upper hallway, the other clocks being stopped slightly earlier or later but rounded by the diarist. This theory fails to account for the wristwatch, the carriage-clock, and the clock-room clock, none of which is in the path of the draught.

The second, the missing minute theory, holds that there is, in the building's local time, a missing minute between 8:36 and 8:37, and that any clock crossing this gap may, depending on the day, stop in it. This theory is the keeper's preferred theory; it has the support of the leap-second doctrine and the defect of being untestable. The third, the editor's, holds that the eight thirty-six is the time at which something happened in this building, that no one any longer remembers what, and that the clocks remember it for us. This account explains nothing about the mechanism. It is included here for completeness.

Should the reader pass a clock in the labyrinth showing 8:36, the matter should be noted but not necessarily corrected. The clocks resume on their own, usually before the hour is out.