Martin Mullaney
LIVING THERE STILL Maypole, a town nestled in the moorland of Devon, was in most every way unremarkable. It housed a modest chapel fronted by a small, dutifully-tended graveyard. It had its village hall, replete with its expected share of officious country busybodies. It had its biweekly market, neighbouring farms, and a few hundred or so residential houses. The element which made Maypole the tourist destination it had become was the Tempus Fugit tower. What can only be described as a monolith, the tower could be seen for miles in every direction. Its hard stone walls stood always unflinching, even when the church spire, dwarfed by a measure of several dozen stories, creaked emulously in the wind. The tower’s progenitor, Godey, had raved that it was a challenge to the heavens. Impiety aside, Father McKenzie could not help but scowl as, for the thirteenth time since sunrise on that cold spring day, an ethereal ringing came drifting down from atop the tower, echoing for miles around. He sat by the window of his small, cosy house to the rear of the chapel, carelessly darning his socks, impatiently waiting for the bells of the Tempus Fugit tower to ring again and hurry along the night. When darkness did eventually fall, Father McKenzie set down his needles, cloaked himself in an anonymising overcoat, and stole out onto the moor. He carefully avoided each bog and sinkhole along his protracted, circuitous route, until he arrived at his destination. Before him lay the decrepit remains of a decades-old bomb shelter, each rusted scrap of corrugated iron an incongruity against the verdant green spinneys surrounding it. McKenzie tugged restlessly at a loose button on 11