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93
The Clockmaker’s Advice
Ayan Zeeshan
M2-C1
In a forgotten corner of the city, between narrow cobbled streets and crumbling brick
buildings, there was a tiny, inconspicuous shop that bore the sign, ‘Time’. All its windows were always streaked
with the breath of the past, and inside, faintly of dust and oil and something else — something indefinably old.
A man called Elias ran the shop. His family and history were stories. He was a clockmaker for the whole city, and
everybody knew that he would mend anything that ticked, no matter how seriously broken. He was this gruff but
kind old fellow with graying hair, usually covered in smithy grime. He'd tend to people who’d come to him with all
sorts of clocks-grandfather clocks that had stopped ticking after decades of faithful service, pocket watches that had
gone silent after a lifetime of stories told, and occasionally, even the wristwatch that refused to keep time. Elias never
turned anyone away and had a skill with gears and springs that no one could bear equivalence to.
What most did not know, however, was that Elias's gift was not mere mechanics. He had a strange ability to hear
the whispers of time itself.
One cold evening, a woman named Marla stepped into his shop. She was older than most of his customers, with
silver in her hair and a sorrow in her eyes, that seemed to have taken root in her very soul. She held out a small,
delicate pocket watch. Old, polished but worn out. But there was something about it that stood out from all the
other timepieces Elias had seen.
"I was told you could mend anything," Marla said, her voice shaking as she handed him the watch.
He gently took the watch from her and let his fingers graze against the cold metal. He gazed at the etchings and felt
a weird sensation wash through him—a memory that didn't belong to him, a memory of an era long gone, flicker-
ing in his mind and then away, leaving him only with the faintest scent of loss.
"It's not broken," he said softly, holding the watch up to his ear. "It's simply… waiting."
Marla's face paled. "Waiting? For what?"
Elias hesitated before speaking. "This watch has been paused. Stopped at a certain moment and it will not tick
forward until you are ready."
"Ready for what?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Elias looked at her, his gaze intense and unyielding. "To move on," he said.
Neither spoke for what seemed an eternity. The shop was quiet, save for the faint ticking of the clocks that
surrounded them, all moving onward, steady in their pace. Between them lay such deep silence, heavy as a ques-
tion neither dared to ask.
"I lost someone," she said, after a long pause, her voice cracking. "A long time ago. And I have never been able to
let go. I thought if I kept the watch, I could keep the memory alive. But now it feels like I'm holding onto something
that's already gone."
Elias nodded. "Sometimes, time doesn't wait for us. And sometimes, we have to let go of it to move forward."
The back of the watch opened to reveal a miniature, intricate mechanism inside. Using his delicate fingers, he
started turning the little gears into motion. The hands of the watch began to shake first and then, with a soft click,
they started moving again.
Marla's eyes widened but Elias still saw an air of sorrow in her heart. He handed the watch back to her.
"Time keeps moving, doesn't care if you are ready or not," he said. "But sometimes, all we need to do is to let go."
Marla's fingers grasped the watch, pressed it against her chest as she felt its steady beating beneath the pads of her
fingers. It was a sound that at once felt foreign and comforting, a sound reminding her of the passing nature of
time—just like life itself.
As she stepped out of the shop, Elias watched her go: more than a repaired watch, it was like helping someone out
of trouble. As the clocks ticked on and the shadows retreated into the past, he permitted himself a small smile in
the quiet of his shop.
Time, it seemed, was a gift that could be given—and sometimes, it could heal.
And thus, the clockmaker continued his work, fixing not only watches but also hearts, one tick at a time.