How to Stop Time

Back in present-day London, Tom’s head hurts. Tom walks to Hackney’s Well Lane, now Well Street, where he and Rose first lived together. His old house is now Hackney Pet Rescue Services. He goes inside and is drawn to an 11-year-old quiet Akita dog. They call him Abraham after the Lincoln Tower, where he was found. Tom unexpectedly adopts him. The blotchy skin on the attendant’s arm reminds him of Dr. Hutchinson’s waiting room, where he once waited for his own diagnosis.

During a blizzard, Toms walks to Dr. Hutchinson’s office at the London Cutaneous Institution for Treatment and Cure of Non-infectious Diseases of the Skin. Dr. Hutchinson recently discovered “progeria,” an affliction that causes “premature old age” (31). Tom has spent the last 200 years looking for Marion and is hopeless. Only his promises to Rose and his mother keep him from ending his life. He needs love to survive; Marion is his last hope. At the hospital, Tom first notices the doctor’s beard, thin and wispy and fading into nothing, “a metaphor for mortal existence” (35). Tom explains his condition with the request that the doctor not use his name in any published studies.