The Clock maker's Gift”

“The Clock maker's Gift”

In the crooked heart of Old Brindle Town, nestled between ivy-covered bookshops and crooked chimneys, stood a tiny clock shop owned by an old man named Eliot Graves. He was a quiet man with cloud-white hair and a face like wrinkled leather, always dressed in a brown vest and red scarf, always polishing gears too small for ordinary eyes to see.

People said Eliot could fix any clock—no matter how broken, dusty, or old. But few noticed the strange pattern in his work: he never took money, and he always asked for something else in return—just a story.

“Tell me a memory,” he’d say, gently taking the timepiece in hand. “One you’ve never shared with anyone else.”

Most people shrugged and went along with it. One woman spoke of a boy she once kissed in the rain but never saw again. A grizzled man confessed to stealing his brother’s favorite marble as a child. A child whispered about hiding under the bed the night her parents screamed at each other. Eliot always nodded slowly, never judging, only listening. Then, within a day or two, the clock would be fixed—perfect, precise.

One winter afternoon, a girl named Liza stumbled into the shop, clutching a strange, silver pocket watch. She was soaked with snow and worry.

“It’s broken,” she said. “It belonged to my grandfather.”

Eliot peered at it through his magnifying lens, brow furrowing. “A rare one,” he murmured. “Swiss, 1873. Wound with grief, not time.”

Liza blinked. “What?”

He set the watch down. “Before I can fix it, I need a story.”

Liza hesitated. She looked out the frost-covered window, then back at the old man. “Okay,” she whispered. “When I was little, I used to pretend my grandfather’s watch could stop time. I’d hold it and wish for moments to freeze—when Mom and Dad were happy, when Gramps and I played chess, when the world didn’t feel so fast.”

Eliot nodded.

She took a breath. “Then, when Gramps died, the watch stopped. Same minute, same second. It hasn’t ticked since.”

He gently took the watch. “I’ll have it ready tomorrow.”

The next day, Liza returned. Eliot handed her the watch. It was ticking again—soft, steady. But as she touched it, time seemed to… shift. Outside, snowflakes froze in midair. A bird hung motionless mid-flight.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

Eliot smiled faintly. “You told the truth. The watch responds to that.”

“Is this magic?”

“Something like it,” he said. “Every clock here has a bit of someone’s soul in it now—pieces of their past, their honesty, their pain. That’s what keeps them alive.”

Liza stared at the ticking hands. “Can I… stop time again?”

“For a moment,” Eliot said. “But be careful. Time only gives back what you’re willing to lose.”

Before she could ask more, the shop door creaked, and Eliot turned. A man entered, carrying a shattered grandfather clock. Liza looked down—and realized the floor was covered in hundreds of ticking watches and clocks, all humming with invisible memories.

She left the shop dazed, the snowflakes resuming their fall, the world speeding up again. The watch in her hand ticked softly against her palm, and somewhere in that steady rhythm, she heard her grandfather’s laugh—faint, but real.

Years later, long after Eliot Greaves vanished without a trace and the clock shop was boarded up, Liza became a clockmaker herself. She worked in silence, never charging a cent, and always asking one thing:

“Tell me a story.”