The Time Keeper

Sarah thought she was gripping the steering wheel but then realizes that she’s holding on to an hourglass. She thinks that this must be a dream. It’s a room she doesn’t know, and there’s an old man wearing a robe. She wanders and sees a room with a large tub of ice and four men gathered around it who aren’t moving. She runs back to the room she started in and asks the old man who he is, and he asks her how she got in here. Frightened, she runs outside to a world where there is no sound and nothing is moving, not even the snow in mid-air. She drops to the ground, curls into a ball, and covers her eyes, trying to figure out whether she’s alive or dead.

Victor assumes that he is between life and death, between worlds. He is confused that he is still in his body and can’t figure out who this girl is. He tries to determine if his body has already been placed in one of the cylinders. The girl returns and asks who he is and where they are. Victor tries to make sense of her presence and wonders if her body is inside one of the tanks too. Victor explains where they are, and Sarah seems confused, leading him to conclude that she is not in one of the tanks. Sarah asks if he was supposed to be inside one of the tanks and then asks why.

Victor assumes that he’s either in some sort of purgatory or having a hallucination. He tells Sarah about his terminal condition and his plan to extend his life through cryonics. Sarah seems to understand some of the science behind the process. Victor is impressed with how smart she is. She asks what his wife thinks, and from his hesitation, Sarah is able to intuit that he hasn’t told her.

Talking to Victor reminds Sarah of when she used to talk to her parents. She would tell them all about her day at school and her dad would encourage her to be a doctor. Her parents divorced when she was 12, and her dad remarried and moved away. Outwardly, Sarah took her mother’s side, but she still missed her dad.

She never really connected with any of the boys she dated from her math classes. Ethan changed all of that, but he also validated her fears that she was pathetic. She tells most of her story to Victor but stops short of telling him about her suicide attempt. Victor asks how she got to the warehouse, and she says that she vaguely remembers being carried by the man who works in the clock shop. Victor looks surprised. They hear a noise from behind a cylinder.

Dor coughs, opens his eyes, and realizes that he is lying on the ground with Victor and Sarah standing over him. Sarah and Victor lambast him with questions, but Dor is still not thinking entirely clearly, and he’s struck by the fact that he coughed even though he never coughed in the cave. In his clinched fist is a single grain of sand that stopped the world. Sarah asks if they are dead, and Dor answers that they are alive and in the middle of a moment. Dor explains that what they have already done can’t be undone, but what they do next is unwritten. They ask why they were chosen, and he tells them that he heard their voices—Victor’s when he was young and old asking for more time and Sarah’s wanting less time. Dor explains that he is the sinner who first created clocks.

Dor remembers when his son had asked whom he would marry and if Dor’s stones, which he used to tell time, could tell him who it would be. Dor explained that the stones only told him the positions of the sun and the moon. Dor’s son wanted to know because there was a girl he liked who was pretty and shy and another girl he did not like who was big and loud. Dor thinks of his son as he looks at Sarah.

Dor opens the hourglass and pours out the sand from the top bulb–the sand of what is yet to happen–and then lays the timepiece on the floor where it enlarges to the size of a tunnel. He beckons Sarah and Victor to follow him. They hesitate but eventually come.

As they proceed through the darkness, Sarah grips Victor’s hand, scared of the future she will see. They arrive at the warehouse where she met Ethan, and Ethan walks past, not seeing them. Sarah wonders if he feels regret about her death, but he doesn’t show any emotion. He plays a video game until another girl knocks on the door, and he lets her in and shares a vodka with her, the way he did with Sarah.

They switch settings to the shelter where she volunteered, and one of the men she saw regularly asks about her and says that he’ll be praying for her. She realizes that these men are resilient, and they go on with life despite difficult circumstances. Sarah turns to Dor and asks about her mom. The scene changes again, and they are at a car dealership. Her mom signs the paperwork to sell the car Sarah was in in her garage. Her Uncle Mark is with her, and once the man from the dealership takes the car away, her mom begins sobbing, angry that she wasn’t there and that she doesn’t know why Sarah died by suicide.

Dor puts his hand over Sarah’s eyes, and she sees him in the cave, alone. She sees him drawing on the cave wall, and he explains that it is so that he can remember the love of his life, the love he lost. When he removes his hand, Dor explains that Sarah has many more years ahead of her. He tells her that there is more for her to do in life and asks if she wants to see, and she replies, “Not yet” (196).

Victor has been watching Sarah’s story, realizing that she tried to die by suicide. He sees her come to the conclusion that he would have told her: No love is worth all that trouble. Now Dor turns to Victor and tells him that he has something to show him. Dor continues to walk in the sand. He is pale, sweating, and his cough has worsened. Sarah and Victor follow along behind him.

They are back in the cryonics facility. Grace comes in, and Jed explains that Victor is in one of the cylinders. Grace is shocked. Jed tells her that she’s welcome to visit and leaves her alone. She walks over to the cylinder where Victor is and bangs it twice with her fist and then kicks it so hard that she nearly falls backwards. Then she leaves. Victor feels exposed, and neither Sarah nor Dor say anything. Victor growls for Dor to show him if it worked.

Dor takes Sarah and Victor into the future, where Victor notes that the city is more crowded; there is less green space, and there are no old people. Victor asks where he exists in this world. Dor takes them to a large room where people are watching scenes from his life on large screens, as though it’s an exhibit. He recognizes Dor in one of his memories and asks why he had been staring at him. Dor responds that he didn’t understand why Victor wanted to live beyond a lifetime, since life is something that he has experienced, and it is not a gift.

The crowd continues to watch Victor’s memories as a young child. Victor asks Dor where he is and why the people are watching his memories. Dor points to a large glass tube in the corner of the room. Victor approaches it and sees his shriveled body inside with his head wired in multiple places, his eyes open and his mouth parted in a pained expression. Dor explains that everything has changed. The documents Victor signed are all gone, as are the people he knew and all of his money.

Victor asks why the people are watching his memories. Dor explains that they are remembering how to feel. The people in this time can live longer than humanity imagined, but they are empty, and Victor is a relic from a simpler time. Victor watches his last moments with Grace as she walks out to go to the gala. The camera then pans to his shriveled body in the tank and shows a tear running down his cheek. A tear runs down Victor’s cheek, and Dor catches it with his finger. He realizes the answer now to the question of why God numbers humans’ days: to make each day precious.

Now Dor shares his story, and as he does his voice becomes raspier and his cough more severe. Dor tells them of his passion for measuring, his family, the old man who visited him as a child, and his ultimate imprisonment. Dor covers Victor’s eyes with his hand and lets him see his lifetimes in the cave, living yet not alive. Dor explains that humanity doesn’t know how to be satisfied with the time they have and instead there is an insatiable desire to control time, which is something no one can do. After he has spoken, Dor collapses.

For 6,000 years, Dor hasn’t aged, but now that the world has stopped, he is aging. The ancient plague begins to take over his body and his skin blotches. The hourglass shrinks back to its normal size and Victor’s future fades away. Sarah and Victor are unsure how to help Dor. Then Sarah decides to see through his eyes again by placing his hands over their eyes. Victor and Sarah see Dor’s final moments with his wife, his ascent up the tower, and when he is swept into the cave. They both decide that they must take him back. Victor pours out the sand from the bottom bulb, the sand of the past, and spreads it out. Victor and Sarah vow to stay together no matter what. They begin following the path holding up Father Time. They make their way to the clock shop and the owner, an old man, opens the door and tells them to come in.

They step into the clock shop and place Father Time on the floor. Sarah and Victor ask the old man who this man really is, and he tells them that his name is Dor and that he is dying, like all who are born are dying. Victor realizes that Dor chose the pocket watch because it had the picture of the family and hoped that it would remind him of what he had with Grace. Victor asks why he was punished during his time in the cave, and the old man replies that it wasn’t a punishment but a blessing, since it taught him to value the life he had led.

The old man takes the ring from the throat of the hourglass and places it on Dor’s finger, and a single grain of sand floats out of Dor’s grasp. Sarah asks the old man what will happen to Dor, and he tells her that he’ll finish his story. Then the old man drops the grain of sand back into the hourglass.

At that moment, time resumes. Dor is standing at the base of Nim’s tower. He changes course and returns to Alli. He makes it back to the hut with great exertion, and when he steps in, Alli is still lying sick on the blanket. She asks where he went, and he tries to come up with an answer and in the end replies that he was trying to stop her suffering. Alli replies that no one can stop what Heaven chooses. Dor lies down beside her and they look out at a beautiful sunset. He holds her hand and enjoys their final moments together. As their eyes close, they begin a new existence as a shared soul, a sun and moon in a single sky.