03 / People of Royal Pattaya

An extraordinary faculty. An ordinary number of screwdrivers.

Our teachers have different answers to the question of what time is. Fortunately, they use the same tools to check whether a watch is running.

Administration · not a Guru

Dr. Helen Waite

Dean of Financial Reconsideration & Refund Prevention

Thai, formidable, and invariably better informed than the person making the inquiry. Dr. Waite joined the fictional administration as the institution became international, and has long regarded the difference between a question and a problem as chiefly a matter of paperwork.

She coordinates alumni introductions, visitor arrangements and anything involving an invoice. Students who believe the university runs on philosophical inquiry have never met her before breakfast.

“I already handled it.”

Her portrait and biography are fictional elements of the Barrel & Coil universe.

The Two Gurus of Time

Two minds. One very complicated university.

Theo Mercer joins adventurous inquiry to warm philosophical storytelling. Celeste Maren understands the stories people tell themselves, and exactly what they will agree to when they feel understood.

Chair of Temporal Philosophy & Expeditionary Studies

Professor Theo Mercer

Born around 1950, Mercer wandered through India, Nepal and Southeast Asia with a field notebook and an appetite for ideas. He arrived in Pattaya in 1974 for three days and, according to the registrar, has yet to submit a departure date. He combines the reassuring humor of a storyteller with the restless curiosity of an explorer. He understands real watch movements, and does not confuse metaphors with measured performance.

“The clock repeats. Reality does not.”

Read the lecture

Guru of Time · Chair of Human Nature & Perception

Dr. Celeste Maren

Her striking green eyes and warmly attentive manner have a remarkable effect on prospective students, visiting patrons and anyone else who thinks they are simply having a pleasant conversation. Celeste is a gifted interpreter of human motives, a sincerely capable teacher, and a ferocious negotiator. She rarely looks like the strongest person at a table. She prefers it that way. Her advice about a watch begins with its owner and ends, very often, with a carefully drafted agreement.

“People tell you far more when they feel understood. Do listen carefully.”

Read the lecture

Proceedings of the faculty council

Philosophy and operating budgets rarely agree.

Professor Mercer says one cannot own a minute. Dr. Maren is certain it can be packaged into a five-day retreat. Dr. Waite asks where the refundable deposit has gone.

Extract from minutes · September faculty meeting

“Wonderful,” said Mercer. “What's the retreat about?”

“Your philosophy of time,” replied Maren.

“I didn't know I had a five-day philosophy of time.”

Dr. Waite pushed two contracts across the table. “You do now.”

Guest faculty · Special acquisitions

Visiting fellows and improbable advisers.

Viktor Chas is listed as an occasional outside adviser to the Archive of Questionable Provenance. He is not faculty, despite the framed certificate that has appeared in one of his photographs.

A rotating bench of repairers, historians, divers and collectors delivers fictional short seminars in the school’s imaginative curriculum. They are admitted by invitation or by arriving with a compelling problem in a small parts tray.

Research & seminar catalog

Previously developed Helen Waite fictional dossier illustration

Helen Waite · original Barrel & Coil character sheet