This last part of our tour opens up the back panels of The Clock of Ages and examines its ticking innards. To start this process, I would like to return to a discussion of the contents of human wills and testaments, a subject previously mentioned in the introduction to Part Two.

Wills reveal an interesting helplessnes in the human condition. We write them to exert authority over our possessions, because we are powerless to do anything about them once the inevitable occurs. Some of these wills make for some interesting reading, and not just as a repository for practical jokes. They can highlight some very human attitudes about the strange ambiguity of death.

For example, there was a will left by a wealthy banker who did not allow the following people any part of his vast estate: ‘To my wife and her lover, I leave the knowledge I wasn't the fool she thought I was. To my son, I leave the pleasure of earning a living; for twenty-five years he thought the pleasure was mine.’