>>5688360>ask Madame Blackwood: why might someone want to destroy or ban all the clocks?The pinched wrinkles on the face of the elderly seer palpitate in puzzlement:
-Why, because it is the month of Epagomene! The intercalary month, when we align our calendar to the Colonies! Are you a foreigner? Not from around these parts? Perhaps you have been away, for a long time? I suppose if you have been away you would not know; it was not always this way. This is the month of The Day Of Fifth Darkness. A shopkeeper or an emporium is only permitted to raise their prices after that festival. Well, some cheat these days, by cunningly and imperceptibly changing the dimensions, weight, volume, quantity or quality of the goods offered, whilst keeping the prices the same. Every year there is a great frenzy, because traditionally amongst the slums, it is seen as a cathartic occasion for a great release of bloddletting and rioting before purchases. The Constabulary have a great deal of trouble quelling it, but I think they secretly encourage it - anything to reduce overcrowding in the slums. (Madame Blackwood gives you an inauspicious, sinister glance) But I suppose you can also use the calendar to make people do strange things, convene secret rituals as circumstances arise or align. And if you change the calendar, eradicate timekeeping that governs rites, festivals and ceremonies, you can also make people forget... Nobody disobeys Time!
