The Clock That Forgot to Hurry

In the heart of an old marketplace stood a tiny watch-repair shop that almost no one noticed anymore.
Bright digital billboards flashed above it. Smart stores sold devices that measured time with perfect precision. People hurried past the shop every day, glancing only at their phones, trusting machines to tell them when to run, when to stop, when to breathe.
Inside that narrow shop lived an elderly watchmaker named Kareem.
Kareem had repaired clocks for more than fifty years. His hands were thin, steady, and remarkably gentle. He treated every broken watch not as a machine, but as a small life that had lost its rhythm.
What made his shop unusual was a sign hanging above the door:
“Time repaired here. Hurry not included.”
Most customers smiled at the line and ignored it.
Only a few understood.
Among them was a young woman named Sara.
Sara worked in a fast-growing technology firm across the city. Her days were filled with deadlines, meetings, notifications, and endless planning. She measured life in tasks completed and emails answered. Success followed her closely — promotions, bonuses, praise — yet sleep avoided her, and peace had become a stranger.
One evening, after a long day that refused to end, Sara noticed her wristwatch had stopped.
Annoyed, she searched for the nearest repair shop and found herself standing before Kareem’s quiet door.
The bell above it rang softly as she entered.
Clocks covered every wall — large wooden ones, tiny silver ones, antique pocket watches, all ticking at different rhythms, like a choir that refused to sing in perfect unison.
Kareem looked up and smiled.
“My watch stopped,” Sara said quickly. “I need it fixed. Urgently.”
Kareem nodded. “Of course. Please sit.”
He examined the watch carefully, opening it with slow, deliberate movements.
“You seem in a hurry,” he observed.
“I always am,” Sara replied. “Time is expensive.”
Kareem smiled gently. “No. Time is generous. We are the ones who are wasteful.”
She frowned, uncertain whether he was joking.
“Come back tomorrow,” he said. “It will be ready.”
“Tomorrow?” she protested. “It’s a simple battery change.”
“Not this one,” Kareem replied calmly. “This one has forgotten how to rest.”
Something in his tone made her pause.
The next evening, she returned.
While Kareem worked, Sara noticed a large antique clock in the corner that had no hands.
“How do you know the time on that one?” she asked.
“I don’t,” Kareem replied. “It reminds me to look at life instead.”
She laughed politely, though uneasily.
Over the following weeks, her watch failed repeatedly — mysteriously, always after particularly stressful days. Each time, she returned to the tiny shop.
Slowly, conversations replaced urgency.
Kareem told her stories — of clocks that survived wars, of watches passed through generations, of people who came not to fix timepieces, but to escape time itself.
One evening, he said, “Do you know why clocks break more often now than before?”
“Because they’re cheap?” Sara guessed.
“Because people force them to run faster than they were made to,” Kareem replied.
The sentence followed her home.
Gradually, Sara began to linger.
She arrived earlier, sat longer, listened more.
In the ticking chorus of the shop, her thoughts slowed. Her breathing softened. For the first time in years, she felt minutes pass without panic.
One night, after a particularly quiet repair, Kareem handed her the watch and said, “This one is fixed. But you are not.”
She smiled weakly. “I know.”
He hesitated, then reached beneath the counter and placed a small brass pocket watch in her hand.
“This was my wife’s,” he said softly. “She died young. For years, I blamed time for taking her too soon. Then I realized — time did not steal her. I simply forgot to cherish her while she was here.”
Sara’s eyes filled with tears.
“Keep this,” he said. “Not to count minutes. To remember them.”
From that day, something changed.
Sara stopped checking her phone during meals.
She walked home instead of driving.
She called her parents more often.
She refused meetings that stole her nights.
Her success did not disappear.
But her life returned.
Months later, she found the shop closed.
The sign still hung there, but the door was locked.
A neighbor told her quietly, “The watchmaker passed away last week. Peacefully. In his sleep.”
Sara stood there for a long time.
That night, she opened the small brass watch.
Inside, engraved faintly, were the words:
“The best moments are not measured.
They are lived.”
Years later, when Sara opened her own small café near the river, she placed that pocket watch above the counter.
Beneath it, she hung a sign:
“Time welcome here. Hurry left outside.”
And people, without knowing why, always felt calmer when they entered