The Time Merchant had a storefront at an intersection that seemed to always be busy with bodies going to work, trying to get home, or on their way to some event. All the major train stations stopped near his shop. When asked why he chose that location, he would say that his clientele tended to be those who were short on time.
He had several gadgets up his long corridors, which were shaped like sleeves. His products weren't cheap either. People, just to catch up when late to a meeting or interview, or to make up for last time with a parent or child, would spend portions of their paycheck heavy enough to make one's stomach sink. They would spend amounts of money that a normal person had to spend months laboring, skimping, and disciplining over to obtain.
The first of his devices was a small radio that broadcast several finely tuned frequencies over the surrounding area, which made all the bodies of apparent motion proximate to its user move more slowly. When the radio was turned on, even at rush hour, all the bodies rushing about the train platforms looked as though they had been dropped suddenly into molasses. Even the trains themselves drifted along like an ice hockey puck nearing the end of its tourney.
The second device was a small machine that hooked up to its wearer's spine. When worn, it worked quietly and unobtrusively to pump and vibrate selective organs inside the body, such as the heart, lungs, and adrenal glands. The device would speed the heart up, making its user move through the world like a wind up marionette, every step jerky, every gesture militant, and every smile fleeting.
For best results, the Time Merchant recommended using both devices simultaneously. For those who chose to go down this rabbit hole, he had a third device.
Over time, the use of the second device made the heart as soft and floppy as a fatty liver. The small radio send radioactivity into the air that burned the soil.
The third device was not a machine, but a system the Time Merchant kept obsessively organized in the back of his shop. Behind the corridors, which were shaped like sleeves, was a vast database of letters, four in total, repeating endlessly like life itself. Should the Time Merchant take you back there, he would take two cotton swabs and swipe each side of your cheek thoroughly.
No one knew how long the merchant had been at his shop at the intersection, collecting DNA. Everyone knew what he did with his archive.
Somewhere in the past or future, or in another universe entirely, there existed a place where no one used time making devices, where no time merchants peddled time making devices. There, the abundance of the land sprouted in thick bushels. There was blades of grass as tall as any building, so strong a person could not break it in half no matter how much pushing and grimacing they did. Humankind grew firm and flexible in such a place and went about their days without a hurry or care.
When the right time would come, the Time Merchant would slowly and methodically feed each DNA sample into his cloning machine and everyone who had the foresight to buy into the third device would leap into paradise, lungs tasting fresh chlorophyll made oxygen for the first time.
Not everyone believed that the Time Merchant would do this tedious and time consuming work when the time came, or that he even had the patience for it. After all, merchants in general had quick temperaments, a tendency towards being hasty, and a rightful appetite for all the latest trends. When talking to the skeptics, the Time Merchant would simply and cynically remind everyone who would listen that the grass was always, inevitably, and without a doubt, greener on the other side.
