The Clockmaker’s Promise

In the old city of Raigarh, where cobbled streets echoed with horse hooves and market bells, there lived a quiet old man named Master Devlan, the clockmaker.

His shop was nothing more than a crooked building tucked between two giant stone towers. But inside, it ticked with magic. Clocks of every shape and size filled the shelves—wooden cuckoos, towering grandfather clocks, pocket watches that whispered secrets when wound.

What made Master Devlan special wasn’t just his skill, but the rumor that swirled through Raigarh’s alleys:

He could give people more time.

It began as a whisper. A dying general who returned to battle. A farmer who lived to see his great-grandson. No one knew how he did it, but those who received a piece of Devlan’s work never seemed to age the same.

Young Nima, a clever but reckless 17-year-old girl, heard the stories too. She had dreams bigger than Raigarh—she wanted to study the stars, build machines that flew, and write books that danced between science and magic. But her mother was sick. Her father was gone. Every day was spent running errands, cleaning, and caring.

One stormy evening, as her mother coughed into a wet cloth, Nima whispered, “If I just had more time...”

The next morning, she went to Master Devlan.

The bell above the door chimed like a bird’s song. The old man didn’t look up from his workbench. “What time are you looking for?” he asked without turning.

She blinked. “How did you—?”

“Everyone who enters wants time,” he said, finally looking up. His eyes were grey but glowing, like the cloudy moon.

“I want time to save my mother,” she said. “Time to follow my dreams. Just… more.”

He studied her, then opened a drawer. From it, he pulled a small, golden pendant clock with blue gears and a crystal face. “This will give you 12 hours of time, but time borrowed must be returned.”

She reached for it.

But he grabbed her wrist. “Listen carefully. These hours are not to be spent foolishly. Use them when you truly need them. And when the last hour is spent, you must return here—no matter where you are.”

She nodded, and he let go.

From that day, Nima’s life changed.

When her mother’s fever rose, she turned the dial—and suddenly had enough time to fetch herbs from the mountains and still be back before sunset. When an exam threatened her scholarship, she used one hour and finished studying what should’ve taken a week. Every hour became a miracle. Her mother got better. She joined the university. The stars began to open for her.

But with each twist of the pendant, a gear inside ticked louder.

On the night of the city’s annual Fire Festival, Nima stood on the rooftop of her college dorm, watching fireworks burst like galaxies. Her friend asked, “What’s that pendant you always wear?”

She smiled. “A gift.”

Then it ticked.

Loud.

Nima looked down. The clock face now showed only one hour remaining.

Her heart tightened. “Return to the shop,” she whispered. “He said I had to return.”

But how could she leave now? She had just been offered a scholarship to study in another country. Her mother was finally safe. Life was blooming.

So she waited.

A week passed. Then a month.

She buried the pendant in a box and tried to forget. But time… did not forget.

Strange things began happening.

Nima started waking up with gray hairs. Her reflection blurred. Her voice aged. She stumbled in class. Her professors thought she was overworked.

Then one night, she dreamed of Master Devlan. He stood beside a towering clock whose hands spun backwards.

"You borrowed time," he said gently. "Now it wants to be repaid."

Nima woke up gasping—and found the pendant glowing, ticking so fast it hummed.

She knew what she had to do.

Storming through the rainy streets of Raigarh, she reached the crooked little shop. The sign had fallen. The lights were out. But when she opened the door, the bell still chimed.

Master Devlan was waiting.

“I broke the rule,” she said, tears streaking her face. “I didn’t come back. I was scared.”

He nodded. “Time is a generous friend but a dangerous master.”

She took off the pendant and handed it to him. “What happens now?”

He looked at her for a long while. “Because you returned… I can offer one final gift.”

He opened a secret panel in the wall and led her to a strange chamber, filled with suspended gears and floating hourglasses. In the center, a clock ticked in reverse.

“Step forward,” he said. “One last time.”

Nima stepped in.

When she woke up, she was seventeen again. But not in the past—in the present, with her mother beside her, healthy. Her knowledge remained. Her future was intact.

But the pendant was gone.

And so was Master Devlan.

Later, when she searched the city for him, all she found was a plaque on the old shop’s door:

“The true gift is not more time—but knowing what to do with the time you have.”

Moral of the Story:

Time is the most precious currency we own—not for what it gives us, but how we choose to spend it. Wasted time is never returned, but a well-spent moment can change a lifetime.