The Clockmaker’s Promise

M Mehran

Elias Thorne lived in a small town where time seemed to move slower than anywhere else. It wasn’t just because of the sleepy cobblestone streets or the way mist clung to the rooftops each morning—it was because of Elias himself.

He was the town’s clockmaker, and his little shop stood at the very center of it all. Dozens of clocks—grandfather clocks, pocket watches, cuckoos, even wristwatches—ticked in different rhythms inside his store. Some residents swore they could feel the heartbeat of the entire town keeping pace with Elias’s clocks.

But what the townsfolk didn’t know was this: Elias had once made a promise.

Many years ago, on a storm-tossed night, his wife Margaret had fallen gravely ill. She had been the kind of woman whose laughter could bend the darkest day back toward sunlight. As she lay in bed, her hand weak in his, she whispered, “If you could only stop time, Elias, I’d stay with you forever.”

And so, when she passed, Elias tried.

He poured his grief into gears and pendulums, into springs and balance wheels. He built clock after clock, searching for the secret to slowing time, or reversing it. He wasn’t just repairing timepieces anymore; he was at war with time itself.

The townspeople noticed peculiar things. A young boy once came into the shop, crying because his toy watch had broken. Elias fixed it, and the boy swore the rest of his afternoon lasted twice as long as usual. A woman brought in her late father’s pocket watch, and after Elias repaired it, she claimed to dream of him more vividly than ever before.

Rumors spread: Elias Thorne doesn’t just mend clocks. He mends moments.

One evening, a stranger came into town. She was tall, draped in a dark coat, and her eyes seemed far older than her face. She stepped into Elias’s shop, ignoring the tick-tock symphony around her.

“You’re the one who plays with time,” she said.

Elias adjusted his glasses, wary. “I repair what is broken.”

“Not just clocks.” Her gaze landed on the golden pocket watch that always sat by his workbench. Margaret’s watch. “You’ve been holding on too tightly.”

Elias’s hands trembled. “And who are you to say that?”

“I am what comes for everyone, eventually,” she said softly. “Call me Time, if you must.”

He almost laughed, but something in her voice froze the sound in his throat.

Time stepped closer. “You’ve been bending my rules, Elias. Every clock you touch, every second you stretch—it cannot last.”

“I only wanted more moments with her,” Elias whispered. His eyes burned. “Is that so wrong?”

Time studied him with something almost like pity. “Love is never wrong. But you are not letting it breathe. You are clutching it so tightly, it has nowhere to go.”

For the first time in years, Elias felt the weight of silence. No ticking. No clicking gears. Just silence.

Time extended her hand. In her palm lay Margaret’s smile—the memory of it, glowing faintly like firelight. “You can’t stop her from leaving, Elias. But you can carry her with you, properly. Not in broken seconds. Not in borrowed hours. In the way she wanted you to live—fully.”

Elias reached for the memory, tears slipping down his cheeks. The warmth of it filled him, but it didn’t ache anymore. It steadied him.

When he opened his eyes, Time was gone. The clocks began ticking again.

From that day on, Elias still repaired watches and clocks. But now, when children asked him what made his shop special, he would smile gently and say, “Every second you live is already a gift. Don’t waste it waiting to rewind.”

And though he never stopped missing Margaret, he stopped trying to trap her in the cogs of his machines. Instead, he carried her in his laughter, in the kindness he showed his neighbors, and in every clock that left his shop—not slowed, not stretched, but working exactly as time intended.

The townsfolk would still whisper about him sometimes, about how his clocks felt different. But Elias knew the truth: it wasn’t the clocks. It was him.

Because once you stop trying to fight time, you finally learn how to live inside it.