Fifteen-year-old Ardy and his friend explore an abandoned brewery. For years, the giant clock atop the building read five minutes after five. Can they complete their mission and actually change the time? Find out in this coming of age short story.
Climbing the Brewery Clock
There’s a point past which there’s no turning back and Ardy had reached it.
“Eight more to go,” whispered Sawyer. Ardy could see just the dark silhouette of Sawyer’s curly head peering down at him from the top of the brick wall. Yes, there were only eight more knots in the climbing rope. Ardy gripped even tighter to each kiwi-sized knot as he ascended, hand over hand, knot by knot. Soon he would be there, on top of the wall with his best friend. From a distance, Ardy would have been visible though. He would have looked like a mountain climber pulling himself straight up a steep rocky face. This was no mountain, though, but a brick wall, the only way into the abandoned brewery. It was twenty feet up from the ground to a gaping hole where they removed the beer tanks and machines when the brewery shut its doors. How many times they walked passed, studying the huge knocked-out portion of the building, thinking about how it was possible to make it inside, undetected, of course. Undetected meant going at night. This was definitely a night mission.
“Seven, six, almost there,” said Sawyer. Ardy could hear, but barely see his mission partner. Sawyer had a way of blending into his surroundings. If not for his full head of curly hair, any passerby on the street would simply think he was part of the crumbling wall. Then Ardy froze. Something made him stop climbing. His hands squeezed like pliers to the rope. Climb down, climb down, a voice screamed in his brain. It’s not too late. You don’t have to go through with this. What if you get caught? Just then, it appealed to him to look out, to turn his head and look out across the downtown streets. A warm July breeze brushed his cheeks and forehead. A car squealed its tires far off in the night. He saw pipes twisted like black pipe cleaners on the sides of long-abandoned buildings. Street lights made windows glissen, the ones with glass still in them. The city at night. This is what he came for. Sawyer came to reset the clock, but Ardy, he came for the feel of it all, the feel of all things shadowy and rusty and hollow and silent. He felt, just then, a rush of strength as he pushed on through the last few knots to Sawyer’s waiting hand. He could have turned back. He could have shimmied back down and stopped the whole crazy mission, but there he was, sitting on the brewery wall with Sawyer, legs dangling into the blank blackness of another building, already partially conquered.
“What now?” Ardy whispered. Sawyer said nothing. Instead, combed his hand through his curls and turned his head slowly one way, then another. He was scanning the darkness of the gaping hole in brewery for a way to get down to the inside of the brewery–a file cabinet, barrels, a pile of bricks–ways they had gotten down from high places on past missions. Nothing. Sawyer looked directly at Ardy, and Ardy could see his dim face now. It struck Ardy, suddenly, how young his face appeared. No acne. No stubble on his chin or cheeks. Glowing, childlike eyes, green like the waters of the bay where together they fished. He guessed the two years difference between them really did make a difference.
“See those beams,” said Sawyer. He pointed to a beam that bridged the pitch-black hole over to what looked like a platform of sorts on the other side. The beam looked as long as the pool at the downtown YMCA. Just then, Adry’s stomach turned over with a sick feeling. He knew what Sawyer would say next.
“You’re not going to tell me we need to cross that,” said Ardy. He was conscious of his voice shaking.
“I won’t tell you, ’cause you already know what I’m going to say.”
“It’s too far to balance on.”
“Too far for standing up” said Sawyer, “but not for sitting. We have to go sitting.” Ardy remembered a fallen-tree they straddled to cross a creek one time. The tree was fairly high up from the creek bed so they chose to play it safe and shimmy across, legs dangling on each side, as if riding an extra long horse. “If that’s the only way,” said Ardy, “Let’s go for it.” Sawyer slowly lowered himself onto the girder beam. He stamped his foot a few times. O.K. Ardy thought, it’s sturdy. We can go through with this. Just like a tree across the creek. Nothing to it. Can’t be that far to the floor. But what if there are sharp things down there? Cross the beam. Just think about that and nothing else. “Here goes nothing,” Ardy said, and he let the tips of his toes touch the beam. Sawyer was half way across, his bony arms reaching ahead, his body and legs swinging gracefully forward with a pretty good rhythm. Ardy started on the beam. Just have to do what Sawyer did, he thought. Copy him, that’s all. Gonna make it if I take my time.
Both hands in front of him on the beam, Ardy edged sheepishly forward. Sawyer was already on the platform, which made Ardy feel better. He did it and so can I. Nothing to it. Copy Sawyer. Legs swinging like this. Both hands reaching out, not too far. Ardy had one hand on top of the other hand, and he looked, from the side view, like one giving CPR compressions. Hands down, then lift; down then lift. Legs swinging, alternating with hands down and lift; down and lift. There, I’ve achieved the rhythm Sawyer had. More comfortable now. I could do this for two YMCA pool lengths. Don’t look down. Don’t think about what’s in the dark down there.
Ardy again arrived immediately to Sawyer’s strong hand which tugged him onto the platform with one swift motion. He made it. He overcame his fears. There was something solid and safe beneath him now. He reached into his pocket for his small flashlight, then remembered their agreement. No flashlights until they were completely out of sight. They had to be cautious. From the street, a passer by on the sidewalk, or even in a car, might see a flashlight’s beam scanning to and fro from inside that gaping hole in the brewery wall. A moonless night made it even worse. It’s kind of like during a power failure when you can look across to your neighbor’s house and see flashlights moving around in their windows. Light is most evident where darkness prevails.
Both boys pawed around in the dusky dim of the platform. Ardy’s hands ran over the curve of a rough rusty barrel tipped on its side. Next, he touched what felt like a shovel of sorts, again weathered and rough with rust. The street lights stingily shone their subdued light through the gaping hole and across to the platform on which they crawled and searched for a way down. Nothing, Ardy thought. There’s no way off the platform. I should have turned back when I had the chance. Sawyer won’t go on alone. He’ll be madder than a hornet at me, but he’ll get over it. Friends since fourth grade don’t stay mad at each other long, at least that’s how it is with us. O.K. now he’s stopping his searching. Oh, great. He senses my hesitation. Here it goes.
“Hey, Ard, you’re doing it again,” said Sawyer, “Don’t wimp out on me, home boy.”
“Yeah, you caught me. It’s just…”
“It’s just your dad talking again. I told you about Chris Lawson. He got picked up on Pine Avenue, majorly sloshed. They drove him home and his mom apologized like crazy and he got away with it.
“And then his dad roughed him up.”
“Yeah, he did. Not cool. But that’s him and you’re you. You know your mom. She would be happy that you got home O.K. and your dad would know nothing about it–ever. You know that’s how it would work.
“Probably,” Ardy said.
Sawyer was standing now, but it was so dark Ardy couldn’t tell if he was facing him or not. They both had been whispering the whole time.
“You’re fifteen,” Sawyer said. “They’re not going to do anything to you.”
“I guess. But it still feels…”
“You feel lots of things. And you overthink everything.”
“Sometimes that’s good, Isn’t it?”
“Now is not one of those times. Think of standing up there, seeing the streets and the lights and everything. And knowing we changed it. You want a feeling. That’s a feeling. You know you love it. “
Ardy chose to stop talking and return to his knees and his groping in the dark. Nothing again. Who would think it would be so hard to get off a dang platform. Sawyer was on the other side, also searching. Nothing here. Nothing there. Frustrating. Wait. What’s this? Ardy’s fingertips ran across something smooth. What could it be? He ran his hand down the diagonal direction of a pipe. It was a railing! “Jackpot!,” he said, realizing he was too loud. “Here’s our way down.” Sawyer turned his head around from where he was crawling and groping on the opposite end of the platform.
“How easy it that,” whispered Sawyer. Ardy thought about how Sawyer always maintained silence or near silence on missions.
“Easy, yes,” said Ardy, “I hope not too good to be true. We still don’t know what’s down there.” Sawyer stood up a little and said, “We’re about to find out.” Ardy’s stomach did a few more flip flops. His mouth grew dry and his heart started beating a bit faster. He thought about when, just earlier, he climbed the rope up through the knocked-out gap in the wall. Fate had given him the chance to turn back, but he didn’t heed. This was another chance to turn around and go the other way. Sawyer disappeared into the pool of black at the bottom of the stairs. Ardy came this far, besides, the feeling of fear was kind of fun, or at least intense. No turning back now. I’m going to see what’s there. Sucking in a huge breath of air, Ardy plunged all at once into the black hole.
When Sawyer turned on his flashlight, Ardy could see brick walls painted white and a dirt floor with different elevations, knolles, and earthen grooves, six inches deep, that branched out like a huge tree from where Sawyer stood. Ardy fumbled in his pocket for his light. Both their flashlights scanned like prison searchlights. The huge room lay before them. It was empty for the most part, except for random islands of rubble the size of laundry baskets.
“I think we’re in the basement,” said Ardy.
“I think so,” said Sawyer. Ardy could hear the excitement in his friend’s voice. That excitement came from the fact that they were now officially out of site from the real world. Underground was about as safe and unnoticed as it gets. A knot untwisted in Ardy’s stomach. Now the chance of them getting caught was near zero, that is, as long as nobody saw them enter the gaping hole or climbing the wall. Now was the time to relax a bit and move from fear to fun, tense to toying around with whatever unexpected things waited in the basement of breweries. “This is awesome,” Ardy said, now with standard voice volume. “I can’t believe we really made it. Man, I’m glad I didn’t turn back.”
“This is great,” said Sawyer, “I am totally pumped. This is awesome, awesome!” Sawyer spoke louder than Ardy did. It was hard to ignore the feeling of being there finally, after passing by on the street so many times. They sailed from rubble island to rubble island, kicking at the bricks and boards, to see if there was anything to uncover. Ardy found something like an automobile air filter and he tossed it toward Sawyer, just for fun. Sawyer found a silver mesh dome that looked like a pasta colander.
“I wonder what this was used for,” said Sawyer. Ardy darted over and looked at the object.
“Some kind of strainer, I think. Don’t you think?” Sawyer looked right at Ardy and said, “Must have been used to get the gunk out of the beer.” Ardy said, “Funny they didn’t take this with them when they took the other machines out.”
“Somebody somewhere’s drinking gunk in their beer, ” Sawyer said with a laugh. Ardy laughed to, louder than he would have liked to.
“You’d think they’d care more about purity of their product?” said Ardy.
“I’d drink a beer with or without gunk,” said Sawyer.
“You would!”
“Looks like they left a filter too.”
“Ah. Wish I had a beer right now, forget the filer and the gunk remover.”
“You’re gross.” Both boys laughed hard and Ardy’s belly hurt from laughing. Sawyer at once walked to the far edge of the room where the dirt sloped down so it was hard to see at first what was there. Then, he stopped in his tracks.
“You won’t believe this,” Sawyer said. “Talk about awesome. This is awesome, capital “A”. Ardy quickly made his way to Sawyer, almost catching his boot in one of the ground ruts. There it was, something like a miniature subway tunnel, lined with white bricks on the sides and the top in a neat arch, slanting with a dirt floor deeper into the ground. Their flashlight beams stopped short where the passageway went up again, so they could only see about ten feet into the tunnel.
With a feeling something like little sparks inside his head, thrilling bursts of anticipation overcame Ardy as the two boys edged their way down the incline into the narrow viaduct.
“Do you think this connects to the second building?” Sawyer asked.
“I think it would have to,” Ardy replied, “If not, then where would it go?”
“Maybe some level under this one? Wouldn’t that be something?” Sawyer started walking faster. Ardy caught up with him, both of them whirling their flashlights around in the passage, not wanting to miss any part of this discovery.
“Comes up inside the second building!,” Ardy exclaimed. There were twice the number of sparks now in his head. Then he added with a loud voice, unlike him, “Totally awesome!” Sawyer paid no attention to Ardy’s dance steps of pure abandoned-building-hollow-rusty-urban-places exuberation. Sawyer sprinted back down the passage where they came from. He was running full-bore in and out the tunnel. Without thinking, Ardy joined him. The two of them looked like ground bees darting to and from a hole in the ground. All at once, Ardy was speeding up and down the steep slopes of the Gorge Runner roller coaster at Ocean Forest Amusement Park. More sparks, careening, twisting, falling, rising, running until running was tiring and the coaster stopped at the crest of their mental and physical incline, where the prized second building sat silent, anticipating their arrival.
Exhausted, they both plopped down and sat on the floor of another huge room. They had made it to the second building. If there were a scale of mission importance, this second building would have the better score. They knew the clock waited at the top. It was only a matter of time. It was only a matter of locating the stairs. They couldn’t be too far.
Ardy gazed around the room they found themselves in. It was vast, taking up a whole story of the building. He estimated there must be at least three stories to the brewery. They were on the first floor, in a sense. He noticed windows on the fringes of the room. Distant street lamps from outside cast hazy puddles of subdued light on the floor near each window. Some of the glass panes were half-broken out, and he reasoned some disrespectful kids had fun with rocks, at the building’s expense. That’s a shame, he thought. He and Sawyer missioned with a motto of respect. Abandoned buildings were objects of beauty, worthy of honor and care, the way a museum of rare artifacts was treated with importance and respect. These rock-throwing punks had no motto to live by, no code of conduct. All this made him put out his light. They didn’t need to mess this up now. They had almost gotten away with the whole thing, without a hitch.
It wasn’t too hard to find the stairwell. It was the only place on that level that was enclosed by four walls. It rose from the cellar like a chimney rises from the basement of a house to the roof. Both boys easily found their way inside. There they saw solid wooden stairs climbing smoothly to the next level. They would have climbed them immediately if Sawyer had not caught a strange sight behind the stairwell shaft. “Is that what I think it is?” he said.
Ardy stopped just before the threshold to the stairwell. “What?”
Sawyer continued, with an edge of excitement to his voice, “That looks like a car!”
Ardy leaned over to take a better look. “A car? Why would anyone…”
“I don’t know why, but there’s a whole car right here, parked in the building.”
“I think it’s a station wagon,” Ardy said, now as excited as Sawyer. “and it’s one of those big ones.” The long car was indeed a station wagon. It was the 70’s family car, par excellence, complete with wood paneling on the doors. It was the kind of vehicle you could pile a family of eight into, plus two dogs, a bicycle, a tent, a white styrofoam cooler, and a guitar. Then Ardy noticed a large splash of color from within the car. When he came closer, he could see it was a stuffed bear.
“What do you know?” Sawyer said, “Somebody left their big pink teddy.”
Ardy saw that the bear was a big bear, indeed. It was the kind you could win at one of those crazy-hard games on the midway of Ocean Forest Park. You would have to shoot a red star out of a paper target or throw a ring around a really wide wedge of wood. Some of the wide wedges would have green dollar bills rubber-banded to them, but only one would have the word “choice” markered on it. Ardy thought about how some kid’s Dad might have dropped twenty bucks trying to win that pink bear. Some little girl with a Dorothy-Hamill haircut, the kind that looks like a female bowl cut, would smile from ear to ear to get that bear. It just didn’t make sense that after all that, somebody would just leave that precious part of their childhood, one of their most guarded memories, in the back seat of a station wagon in a gutted-out beer factory. Talk about a terrible end to a great start. Ardy felt at once pity and sadness and disgust and he actually shook his head. Sawyer tugged open the back door and slid across the car’s back seat. “Look,” he said, putting one arm around the pink bear, “We cool, me and my homey.” He was using a pseudo-rhythmic urban accent. In the eighties they called this rap. He continued, “My home girl’s coming home with me!” He pulled the bear closer so he was cheek to cheek with the stuffed animal. Ardy, after thinking about how sad it was that this bear got left behind or left out or abandoned, was in no mood to see the former object of some young girl’s affection get carried out by them. It just didn’t seem right to disturb it. It was part of the brewery now, and that being so, gave it at least a shot at being preserved. That was a good word, Ardy thought: preserved. Who were they to get in the way of that?
“We’re leaving it here,” Ardy started in a determined voice, “She isn’t going with us. Don’t you see, she’s part of this place. We haven’t taken anything from any of the buildings we’ve climbed, and we are not starting now.”
“Ah come on, just this one. Won’t hurt anyone or anything. Nothing’s being disturbed,” said Sawyer.
“Just leave it,” Ardy shot back, more forcefully now, and there was a righteousness in his voice, the way a you might sound if someone suggested that you cheat on a test, and you refused. That’s the kind of tone Ardy came back at Sawyer with. Sawyer rolled his eyes and shrugged his one shoulder.
“We’ll if you’re gonna be that way,” Sawyer said, “I guess we have no choice but to leave her here.” Then he mocked, “All alone in the back seat of this car with no one to love her. Well, I guess it’s good bye forever.” Sawyer planted a kiss on the bear’s cheek and slid out of the car, leaving the door open. Ardy carefully closed the door before walking away, rather determinedly, toward the stairwell. Sawyer followed behind.
The flight upward through the stairwell was something of a victory journey. Ardy may have even skipped a stair or two; he was rocketing so quickly skyward. Their flashlights dotted the stairwell interior with dancing light patterns, like those cast by disco balls. One flight, then the next and the next, Ardy leading the charge, until the roof door was visible ahead. It was difficult to stop at such a breakneck pace. But Ardy stopped. He knew he had to. They had come this far together. They would end this together. The door to the roof was cracked open, ever so slightly, but just enough for light from the city at night to sliver through. They didn’t say anything. They just reached out their hands and simultaneously pushed–hard. The door flung open with ease and they burst forth onto the rooftop.
They nearly tripped over each other finding their footing and their way back to standard walking speed. They climbed the mountain. They arrived at where they so many times longed to be, fantasized to be. It was pure elation, a type of wild euphoria they seemed to only find on missions such as these. It was as good as they remembered, as good as they expected the feeling to be. They were privy to emotions unknown, unshared by passers by below.
It took some time to come down enough to survey their new-found surroundings. There was the usual: sewer-grate-like drains, vents that looked like missile warheads, pipes connecting metal boxes to round fan enclosures. One thing they loved to do was look out in all the directions from the top of a building. Toward the lake the steeple of St. Patrick’s was most obvious. There was a light that blinked yellow from inside the top-most part of the bell tower. Ardy even thought, from their place up there, that the yellow light illuminated an actual bell inside. “I think I can actually see a bell,” he said.
“No way,” said Sawyer. “Yep, you’re right. I see it now. Can’t see that from the street for some reason.”
Ardy placed one foot on the narrow wall at the edge of the rooftop and said, “That’s the kind of stuff I really love about this.” Sawyer moved on to the west side. Ardy joined him. Dark house tops with shadows of tree tops were less interesting.
“I think I could jump into one of those trees and survive,” said Sawyer.
“You go right ahead,” Ardy said. “I’m staying right here.”
Car sales lots with extra bright lights made for a weird sight from the top view. Colored rectangle boxes of cars in long lines looked like some kind of modern-art painting. They knew what was on the east side, for they had come from that way. There was the sidewalk with it’s sentry-like telephone poles armed with their own search lights, the reason they could not turn their flashlight’s on in the gaping hole. The railroad tracks beside that with that fence they had to scale to reach the brewery wall. Ardy thought it was remarkable how miniature the fence looked. It certainly was everything but miniature when they had to climb it. Ardy did not know why they looked everywhere around the roof except at the reason they came in the first place. Even Sawyer, he thought, seemed to avoid dealing with it. As they say, the elephant in the room was the brewery clock itself.
Ardy thought it was funny how both of them, together and simultaneously, turned around to face the looming brewery clock. There it was, above them, in all its glory. It was an enormous beer mug, the size of a cabin or a small house. The beer had a “head” on it–the foamy, bubbly part on the top–and and some of the foam flowed down the right side of the mug. Of course it was all a still-life picture, frozen in time and space. Ardy thought it looked like a real beer mug, like an actual photograph enlarged many times. In the dead center of the mug of amber-colored beer were the hands of the clock.
The time read five minutes after five. That’s the same time it had read for as long as Ardy had been alive. Staring at the clock, Ardy remembered walking with his little sister, even before his brother was born, down Parade Street to shop at the Boston Store. The clock read the same time back then–five after five. It became a very familiar sight, the clock did, watching lovingly over the them. It was part of the whole experience, just like the Parade Street storefronts, Nanny’s firm hand gripping his as they crossed the street, the warm summer air, the occasional glimpse of the lake to the north. Those were sunny days, golden days.
Sawyer edged closer to the clock, not unlike the way one might approach some bushes where a rustling sound had just been heard. A sort of scaffolding held the billboard-like beer mug aloft. There were thin, x-shaped rusty steel bars reaching up like bony hands and fingers. Some were tilted slightly to one side or the other. Ardy considered it amazing that such a meager support system could hold it up for so long. Once Sawyer’s foot tested one of the steel columns, he pulled himself up, turned his head around to Ardy.
“It’s sturdy”, Sawyer said, “More sturdy than it looks. You coming?”
Part of him would have liked to come, to follow Sawyer, but Ardy couldn’t move. His feet were cemented in once place. Sawyer was already up on a platform no wider than a diving board, lying flat so he couldn’t be seen from the street. “I’m not sure I want to,” Ardy said, so softly that Sawyer didn’t hear him.
“You coming?” Sawyer said again. Ardy felt a lump rise in his throat and his stomach flipped around like a clothes dryer. “I’m not ready,” he finally squeaked out.
“Not ready? This is why we came. We don’t have all night. Are you coming?” Sawyer was still lying flat on the platform, looking down at Ardy with his face turned to the side. He looked like someone sprawled out on the top level of a bunk bed. He even looked from Ardy’s perspective to be pretty comfortable. That was no surprise. Sawyer was comfortable swinging across the beam in the gaping hole. Ardy was awkward. Sawyer was at home with the pink bear in the back of the station wagon. Ardy was ready to run away. Ardy wished he could run away now. His stomach tuned even faster: turbocharged clothes-dryer style. But there was nowhere to run. The rooftop dropped away on all sides, all four points of the compass.
“I’m not sure we should do this?” said Ardy.
“What’s wrong,” asked Sawyer. “Give me a good reason why we shouldn’t.” He was still lying on the platform above.
“It just seems wrong to me, all of a sudden,” said Ardy.
“Wrong? Nobody cares about an old clock. It doesn’t even work anymore.” Sawyer sat up. “Hey,” he said, “We never talked about a time. What time do we want to set it for?”
“I’m not sure we want to reset it.”
“You’re just getting nervous. That’s just you. You’ll be happy we did what we came for.” Sawyer started looking all around and said, “Hey, hand me that metal stick.” Ardy saw a rusty metal stick as long as the handle of a pool swimmer. It had another piece on the end that formed a hook of sorts. It looked something like the shepherd’s crook on a statue Ardy knew at church. Ardy didn’t want to hand the stick up to Sawyer. His thoughts raced. What harm was it? It’s just a broken clock. Nobody cares one way or another about it. It’s useless junk, that’s all. Kids don’t walk downtown with their Nannies anymore. They don’t comment on the clock like he did. It’s just a new time. The clock will still be there. Just touch the stick. Pick it up. See, nothing wrong. Hand it to Sawyer. There. Nothing to it.
“Thanks. I knew you’d come around,” said Sawyer. “Now how about that time.” Ardy somehow knew what to tell him. It was painfully clear at that moment. He swallowed hard and said, “Ten forty. Set it for ten forty”
Sawyer pulled up the stick in ready position, like a man ready to knock down cobwebs near the ceiling. He looked at Ardy puzzled. “Why ten forty?”
“That’s the time it is right now.”
“How’s that make sense?”
“It just does.”
Two things struck Ardy as remarkable. First, how easy it was for Sawyer to move the clock hands. Second, how quick it was all over. The big and little arms of the clock succumbed to Sawyer’s metal shepherd’s stick-hook without a fight. In some ways Ardy felt relief. There was nothing to stress over. It was all over.
Getting back down from the mountain of the Brewery was far easier and somewhat disappointing. They passed by the objects and places that once fascinated them. For some reason, Ardy thought they no longer held within them any mystery. Even the bear in the dim back of the station wagon stuck him as merely cloth and filling. He no longer thought about the girl and how her Dad spent his money to get it for her. They even found another way out though a gap in one of the walls. No more gaping hole. No crossing dangerous beams. It seemed, in some ways, all too easy. They didn’t even bother scaling the fence that appeared miniature from the roof, didn’t bother hiking the railroad tracks back to their neighborhood. They simply walked, heads down, in the middle of the street.
“OK,” said Sawyer, “Here it goes.” He stopped and whirled around, kind of on one foot, and faced the clock. “We did it, from now on, it’s ten forty everywhere in Erie, and we can say we changed it to be that time.” Ardy kept walking forward, looking at the cracks in the blacktop. He did not share Sawyer’s excitement. It didn’t seem important to look at the new time on the clock. He wondered if he ever would look at it again. A breeze blew some treetops overhead. Goosebumps stood up on his arms. No moon or stars were visible beyond the treetops. Ardy at once felt absolutely lost, without bearing or sense of location.
There’s a point past which there’s no turning back and Ardy had reached it.
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