The Chronophage

It takes forty five minutes and £26 to get to Cambridge from King’s Cross Station in London - and that includes the fifteen minutes’ meandering to find platform 9 ¾ and queue up for the photo.

Cambridge is a lot like its locals’ accent: elegant and composed with a certain air of superiority, old and full of history, but spotless. The grass in the green areas and at the banks of the river Cam that slithers across town evidence a neater manicure than I myself ever got. The arched bridges and the flowery gardens look like they belong to a film location for placid afternoons and subdued characters. Only the crimson red of the flowers growing profusely on the flower beds disrupts the prim face of this graceful English city.

As I arrive, I walk down a  brownish gravel street,  the colour of the surrounding facades, and with every step I take, I can hear the crackling under my feet. To my surprise, the university buildings’ entrances are roped off and the city is in silence. I should have known, it is the month of July, and when I walk past Trinity College, the largest one in Cambridge University, I spot the ‘Exams in progress’ sign. I crane my neck over the ropes to see the inner yard and the galleries that surround it, which seem to me those of the Magical World of Harry Potter. I can tell the stillness of those galleries on the other side of the yard is not interrupted by the rippling echo of any steps and I picture students sitting in long rows of desks in high-ceilinged classrooms, leaning intently over their exams, acknowledging only the existence of that sheet of paper in front of their eyes.

The city is rather small and a few minutes’ walk takes me to the river Cam, where I go on a guided punting tour. A punt is a boat, similar in shape -if not in style- to the Venetian gondolas. For forty five minutes, I glide down the river as I hear stories that involve the historic rivalry of Cambridge university students and world famous alumni, like Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking.

Later, when I make my way down a cobblestone street, I stumble upon a walking tour about to start and join in. It takes me to the corner of Benet and Trumpington streets, where the mellow tone of my day trip is thrown out of balance. In this corner, there is a big clock facing the street, the Chronophage. 

This is a visual representation of the tyranny of time and a much darker shade in the palette I have seen so far in Cambridge. It consists of three concentric golden discs that signal the hours, the  minutes and the seconds with flashing slits instead of needles. It strikes the exact hour once every five minutes, and the lights slow down or fast forward to compensate; a behaviour that purposefully reflects the irregularity of life. But what is even more particular about it is the huge, dark, sinister insect, with long legs and pointed teeth that walks slowly over the edge of the clock, opening its mouth and devouring time as it goes, invariably and unavoidably. I observe it for a few seconds, thinking this ominous clock has a tragic and hypnotic symbolism and that, just as other fearsome things in life, like abysses or extinction, it makes the beauty of life itself even more apparent. 

The Chronophage.

When I move on, I am left in a rather reflective mood and notice the twist in the tale of my light-hearted day trip around historic and peaceful Cambridge, as I catch myself mentally lingering on the elongated blinking LED lights of the Chronophage, its evil, time-eating grasshopper, the power of now, the transience of life and the dangers of entrusting it to the future. I come out of it just in time to hop on the train back to London, when a lighter mood takes hold of me as I settle in comfortably for the ride.