In the box was a photograph. They all knew very well its provenance, the subject matter and the meaning in this precise context, Tea blushed.
The photo was old and brown, it was about 2inches high, and an inch wide, it appeared to have been developed by hand, a long time ago. It was not possible to tell whether it had orginally been a colour image, now the hues had gone the black had faded so it looked like sepia. That made it hard to tell at a glance how old it was, it's proportions and colours looked like something from an old box of Victoriana under a table, among postcards and stiff portraits.
It was only by scrutinising the picture that one could judge its age. The image was clear and focused, it seemed to have been taken with an old fashioned camera, no pixels or digital artifacts were evident, exposure and depth of field seemed carefully judged to maximise the amount of light falling into the lens, it was well composed. It showed an interior scene containing two standing figures either side of what appeared to be an altar. Upon the altar, and one would have to use a magnifying glass or some other optical aid, the emulsion of the print was smooth and the details were crisp as a pin, was as follows:
The altar was tall and really crowded with items stacked upon one another, some of which might have grown in place, coral like structures, cascading ectoplasms, frozen in the tan natural light, candlewax dropped over wood and bone, like grotty icicles, and everywhere fungi, great crests of mould, mushrooms and lichens and mosses binding the structures, extruding from between objects, oozing through gaps.
The top of the altar was arrayed with a thicket of sharp looking objects, sticks, blades, an umbrella, sporting and gardening implements, poking upwards, making the whole thing a bit taller than teh dark figures to the sides. They were attached together in a bundle around a hatstand, above an old blazer with epaulets and a row of costume medals, upon which a variety of headgear, caps, helmets, masks and other millinery hung, a fake specs nose and moustache, despite all it's anatomical familiarity it looked as ungainly and inhuman a scarecrow or a guy fawkes doll,
bottles, jars gourds, skulls, coconuts and plush toys made up the bulk of the sculpture, yet nothing personal or branded, no words or trademarks were in evidence to contextualise in time or place.
Pinned to a sporran like thing, with a couple of grouse feathers sticking out merrily from behind it, near the peak of the whole assemblage was a receipt, handwritten and distinct, in an ebulliant calligraphic hand with thick descenders, extravagant curlicues and accents, it read, "3 tubs best only, £3 4s 2p" with "Collected 8/8/8/88" in a smaller hand across it, the paper was headed "S Sherbet & Siblings, Among the Finest Fish and Game in the West Country" - the ampersand was printed stylishly backwards, and the Ss interconnected like brambles. The bottom corner was folded over, but a phone number had been there, and the last couple of digits could still be made out. It seemed archaic. but looking down further, the superstructure of the altar was constructed from plastic milk bottle crates, labelled "Express Dairies" and it was not difficult to make out bottles in the distinctive shapes of the early to mid nineteen nineties.
IN th every centre of the composition was a timepiece, it was the exact same same elaborate chronometer, dials and springs and jewels and rotors on display in a configuration that was unmistakable, no two much devices could possibly exist. The watch's body was dull brass, cast thickly and rivetted, with glassy portals showing its innards, quite similar to an old fashioned divers' helmet, with too a long chain coming off it like an air tube. On the inside, amongst the intricate and exquisitely machined closckwork, that seemed to be floating in a gelatinous goo, a thick wd40 that might conceal tiny wispy nymphs or sprites flitting between the cogs and rotors, as if pulled up from thousands of leagues below the trbulaent and sargasso pea green soupy sea. The workings were so fine and so artfully assembled, so delicately and nimbly turning and interconnecting, pinging and clicking that it seemed as if an entire galaxy was rotating and revolving around the gem like core, where a glittering and precious heart lay at the very centre of this mesmerising and magical clock.
Peering at the photo in the box, the unworldly clock on the strange altar, the tiny golden heart behind the window showing the inside of that mystical orary, a tiny minute screen displaying in ancient but stylish but primitively digital glyphs 23:23 and etched indelibly into its body the unearthly power word: CASIO.