The Clock That Forgot Time

The attic smelled of cedar and dust, the kind of place where secrets hid behind boxes and the light never quite reached the corners. Eleven-year-old Lila pressed her palms against her knees as she crawled through stacks of old trunks and moth-bitten coats. Her grandmother had asked her to fetch a quilt for the winter, but Lila’s curiosity always had a way of guiding her elsewhere.

That was when she saw it.

Nestled beneath a collapsed pile of yellowed newspapers sat a clock. It was not the sort of clock you’d expect in a quiet countryside home. The wood was dark oak, polished though worn, with brass hands that curled like ivy. Its face had no numbers—only a ring of delicate etchings, symbols that seemed to shimmer when the attic light brushed them.

Most strangely of all, the hands did not move forward. They ticked backward, each second reversing into the last.

Lila reached out and touched the glass. The moment her finger brushed it, a sound filled the room—not the steady tick of gears, but a soft whisper. She blinked, and suddenly the attic was gone.

She stood in her grandmother’s kitchen. The walls were brighter, the counters less cluttered. And in front of her, a younger version of her grandmother stirred soup at the stove. Her hair was chestnut, not gray; her hands were smooth, not wrinkled.

“Gran?” Lila whispered.

The woman didn’t turn. The scene moved as if on its own, unfolding like a memory. And then, just as suddenly, the attic returned. Lila stumbled backward, her heart thudding against her ribs.

The clock ticked on, its hands sliding back one second at a time.

That evening, she told her grandmother about it. The old woman sat very still in her armchair, her tea cooling beside her.

“You found it,” she said softly. “I hoped you wouldn’t.”

“What is it?” Lila asked, wide-eyed.

Her grandmother’s lips tightened. “It is a memory clock. It doesn’t measure hours—it measures what has already passed. Every tick opens a doorway to a moment that came before.”

Lila leaned forward. “So… you mean I can see the past? All of it?”

“Yes,” her grandmother whispered. “But be warned. The clock doesn’t simply show. It takes something in return.”

For the next week, Lila could think of nothing else. While her friends played outside, she crept up into the attic and pressed her hands against the clock. Each time, it whisked her into a different memory.

She saw her mother as a teenager, painting stars on her bedroom ceiling. She saw her grandfather, who had passed away before she was born, laughing as he built a wooden swing in the yard. She saw herself as a baby, curled in her grandmother’s arms.

But after each vision, she noticed small changes. She would forget where she had placed her schoolbooks. She couldn’t recall the lyrics of her favorite song. The more she visited the past, the more pieces of the present slipped away.

One night, she woke from a dream with tears on her cheeks. She had been trying to remember her best friend’s face, but all she could see was a blur.

Finally, she went to her grandmother, trembling.

“Gran, it’s making me forget,” she said. “Why does it do that?”

Her grandmother sighed and closed her eyes. “Because memories are heavy, child. To hold the past too tightly means letting go of the present. The clock was my burden long before it was yours. I used it once, long ago… to remember the last day with my husband. I paid the price with years of forgetfulness.”

Her voice cracked. “Some moments are not meant to be relived, no matter how much we ache for them.”

Lila’s throat ached. She wanted so badly to see her grandfather again, to step into those lost worlds. But she also wanted to remember her best friend’s laughter, her favorite song, and the stories her grandmother told at night.

“Can it be stopped?” she asked.

Her grandmother nodded slowly. “It can. But it requires a choice. The clock must be given back one final memory—the one you cherish most. Only then will it rest.”

The attic was silent when Lila climbed the stairs again. She placed her hands on the clock, heart pounding.

“What is my most precious memory?” she whispered.

And then it came: a warm afternoon in the garden, her grandmother kneeling in the dirt with her, teaching her how to plant daisies. The scent of earth, the sound of laughter, the feeling of belonging.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pressed her palm against the clock’s glass. The memory glowed like a candle before fading into the wood. The clock’s hands slowed, then stopped entirely.

The attic grew still.

Lila collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. When she woke the next morning, the clock was nothing more than an ordinary, broken trinket. Its whispers were gone.

And yet, she felt lighter. Her mind was clear again. She remembered her songs, her schoolbooks, her friend’s face. But when she tried to recall the daisies with her grandmother, there was only a gentle emptiness.

Her grandmother never spoke of the clock again. But sometimes, when they sat together in the garden, Lila would feel a pang—like a flower she had once seen, but could no longer name.

And still, she smiled. Because the future, she realized, was too precious to trade away for the past.