“The art is what you start from as much as what you are left with.”

Glömd unwraps the parcel he has been clutching since entering the workshop. Even under the dim glow of scattered lamps, the specular metal streaks a sharp reflection across the room. “No one knows the full history of what they wear, but I like to think the metal remembers.” His marbled hands soundlessly slide the silver plate into a worn platform, before vicing the wood around it.

As the old man angles the apparatus back and forth, tightly inspecting for imperfection, he traces practiced steps toward a large machine, hulking in the center of the atelier. “Look at that — nearly a prime polish.” He fastens the plate to the only rectangle on this instrument heavy with discs. Meticulously, Glömd begins leveling the iron stand holding the plate.

“You know, initially, this rose engine was developed for woodturning, but that was even before my time.” The old man laughs, turns to his left, and continues his work as the quip goes unanswered, “Some of the casts on this machine are original — from as far back as 1773.” Satisfied with the evenness of the platform, the seasoned craftsman uses a fine-toothed crank at the right to ease it toward the sharp engraver protruding proudly from the horizontal tower of circles. “Really, we only saw metal guilloche work become popular after a Prussian watchmaker ornamented the timepieces of French royalty.”

When the engraving blade invades the last half millimeter of space between it and the shimmering silver, Glömd trades his glasses for intense magnifiers mounted to the machine. He holds his breath and ticks the crank to the sound of his ancient Breguet wristwatch, rattling mechanical seconds together until the sharp engraving point kisses the naked silver. “They say Napoleon wore his work — that doesn’t matter too much now, I suppose.”

The master craftsman reclines into his weathered leather seat, edging it toward the machine. He traces his fingers over the large petal-like cams that will direct his blade. “It’s nearly impossible to replicate another artist’s pattern. You can get close—never perfect—at least, not by hand.” Glömd glances over at a large desk clock, the only furnishing not grinning with age. It silently whips an ornate second-hand over a bright modern dial: no numerals, no flaws.

Looking down, his tired arms begin to delicately turn a battered handle at the left. “The speed is half of the battle. One slight tremor, one loose spin, and the paradise is lost. Each cut is a breath, a word in the story the engraving will tell. You must tell it well.” The blade skates across the mounted metal. After each full rotation, Glömd painstakingly adjusts the circular tracks used to set this dance in motion. His hands remember this process faster than his mind; they know this movement by the thousand; his eyes know each incarnation of line. The twinkling of carved silver sweeps forth in the perfect harmony of a silent song.

A phone rings. The man is startled. The blade is swift. The speed is broken.

The man’s over-vigilant eyes snap closed; he will not look at what has been done. Glömd rises from his chair, shakes his head, and walks to the dust-covered landline by the door. Its alarm is unerring, and he stares at it as if he can see its sound. Again, his eyelids grow together. The ringing stops.

“…hello?” the phone says.

Glömd opens his eyes. “Yes?”

“Did you get it?”

The aching artist looks again to the shining clock on his desk. “I have it.”

“Well, what do you think? I haven’t been able to reach you for days—I was starting to get worried.”

“It is… I guess… it’s… accurate.”

“Accurate? Dad, it’s beautiful — matched perfectly to your engraving style. Making them like this, the world will see your work.

Glömd’s gaze tiptoes to his ruined engraving. “But… it’s not really mine, is it?”

“Dad, we’ve talked about this. I mean, I can’t do what you do. This is the only way the company moves forward.”

The old man walks to his desk, clears away loosely gathered designs, and pulls up a beautiful picture of a boy, the young face of the phone’s voice, framed in his father’s favorite guillochage.

“Dad… I’ve got to run. We’ll talk later.”

Glömd hangs up the reciever and stares intently at the photograph. In it, his son presents his first guilloche, a messy piece that now sits, framed above Glömd’s desk. It looks quite like the damaged plate still sitting in the rose engine lathe.

The tired father picks up his son’s new clock, made perfectly to specifications by another manufacturer. As he holds the photo and timepiece side-by-side, two mirror images glint back at him: one a little dusty, but with his smile, and the other harsh, warped, and showing the weight of age.

“They may do it better, but they will never remember.”