If Time Would Permit

1) the Boy who could keep Time

"Hurry up with that damned wrench, Ekko!", called a loud voice from the front of the shop. Ekko was struggling to find it, dashing from box to box on the shelves. Benzo was never good at organizing, preferring chaos towards any systematic approach. He claimed it was good at keeping his "wits sharp" so no one could haggle a single piece of coin out of him. Now more than ever, Ekko wanted to bring that up with him.

He was about to give up and tell Benzo it wasn't back here, when something metallic caught his eye. "I found it!"exclaimed Ekko, rushing out of the back room. Benzo gave him an exasperated look, as if to say "of course you did, you moron!", but kept silent as he and the customer watched Ekko race towards them with the trophy held straight in front of him.

"Sorry about that, Randel. 'e's new to the shop. Still runs round like 'eh crow wi't his head lopped clean off. I give 'im a month 'fore I need a new assistant. Anyway, let me see what I can do wit' this... eh, what you call it again?"

"A chem-essence converter. Please be careful with it!" Randel was an anxious man. He stood a head over Benzo, who was already big to most in the Lanes. He was dressed better than many down here, with the hand me downs of Piltover resting uneasily on his shoulders. His fancy shirt made out of some kind of fabric Ekko hadn't seen (must be popular up there in the City of Progress, he thought to himself) was clearly made for a bigger bloke than Randel's slender frame. It draped down his shoulder, and he had to keep readjusting it. His pants, with holes and tears here and there, were also something he (nor Benzo for that matter) could never afford. Ekko was curious about what he did for a living, but it was Benzo's strict policy to never fraternize with the customers. "Find out what they need, and give it to 'em for a 'good' price" was the motto.

As Benzo tinkered away at the converter, Randel watched him like a Demacian eagle. He reached out stammering "careful! Careful!" on several occasions and Benzo had to keep stopping to tell him to "let a man work his craft!" Ekko was waiting for something to do as he leaned against the door frame of the room he found the wrench in. Benzo must have sensed it, because without looking up from the gadget he said, "Go make ya'self useful and sweep up outside the shop, boy"

Ekko sprang to his feet and in seconds had the broom and was out of the door. He craved things to keep him busy. His mind always ran a trillion paces a minute so anything to keep him occupied was well and good in his opinion. As he swept the bottles and garbage of the night before, he found himself gazing at the early morning crowd. A few stragglers from "the Last Drop" were making their long treks home to sleep off the hangovers. A couple were making out in the alley next to Benzo's shop. Ekko pulled a face in disgust. How anyone could think about kissing someone else was beyond him.

Ekko was at the tender age of 8 and his mind was on one thing: his friends. He had always been a loner from an early age. While other kids were running the streets and making trouble, his parents had always wanted him to be productive. From the age of 4 he had tinkered with a lot of gadgets and machines around the house. He found them fascinating and just wanted to see how everything worked. His father worked in the mines for the Chem Barons and would sneak home little gizmos and junk he found at work. Ekko would spend weeks playing around with them and trying to make them work even though he rarely knew what they were supposed to do in the first place. He would often look out at the kids playing their games or fighting and wish he could be out there with them, but his parents didn't want him to be associated with the wrong crowd. They knew he was too intelligent for the Lanes and would fill his head with their wishes for him to be accepted at the Piltover Academy one day. Since Ekko always saw how hard his family worked with that thought in mind, he never wanted to do anything that would upset them or cause trouble.

There is, however, only so long in solitude a young boy can impose on himself before he eventually needs companionship. One day while his parents were both at work, Ekko decided to sneak out of the house. He would only be gone for an hour, he expected. His parents would never know, and he could play games with other children, finally. He found them playing a combat game a few blocks from his house. Ekko watched from behind a building as a little blue haired girl with a paint gun stood on one side and a much older and bigger boy stood on the other. They stared at each other for a while, and Ekko felt his heart skip as he watched the blue haired girl look the older boy down.