The Timekeeper

Yes, you guessed it, The Timekeeper is about Father Time himself. This book is wholesome but simple, just like the title itself, which makes it an easy read but by no means boring or for the numb-minded. I would say in this case less is definitely more. Now I am a few million lightyears away fom being a “book critic”, so here are a few excerpts from the book that will give you an idea of not only the story, but of the moral of it, and how hearty the words taste in your mouth and mind.

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays.

Man alone measure time.
Man alone chimes the hour.
And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures.
A fear of time running out.”

“This is a story about the meaning of time and it begins long ago, at the dawn of man’s history, with a barefoot boy running up a hillside. Ahead of him is a barefoot girl. He is trying to catch her. This is often the way it is between girls and boys.
For these two, it is the way it will always be.”

“A man sits alone in a cave. His hair is long. His beard reaches his knees. He holds his chin in the cup of his hands.
He closes his eyes.
He is listening to something. Voices. Endless voices. They rise from a pool in the corner of the cave.
They are the voices of people on Earth.
They want one thing only.
Time.
…
This man is Father Time.
Soon he will be free. To return to Earth.
And finish what he started.”

Well, that’s it in a infinitely small nutshell. It’s beautiful and it makes you think. It leaves you with a feeling of content in the end, when everything comes together perfectly. You know, like the feeling of content you get when a braai is lit at the end of a long, humid, pool side summers day.
Anyway, albeit unrealistic, there’s a whole lot of story to this book, but the message that it conveys is something that I think many people could do with learning. Give it a read. It’s only 222 pages afterall.