The Man Who Collected Time

They said the old clockmaker on Halden Street had gone mad.

Children whispered that he could stop time, that his workshop never closed, and that he spoke to the ticking in his sleep.

No one really believed it — not until he started collecting people’s watches.

The man’s name was Adrian Vale.

He’d once been a renowned horologist — delicate hands, sharp eyes, a master of precision.

But after his wife, Clara, died in her sleep, he’d closed his shop and disappeared for nearly a year.

When he returned, something was… different.

The glass on his storefront was blackened, and the clocks inside no longer showed time — their hands spun endlessly, chasing something invisible.

When asked why he had returned, Adrian only said:

“I’m fixing the hours she lost.”

The first strange event happened on a cold Tuesday morning.

A woman came in asking for her father’s pocket watch to be repaired — a family heirloom stopped since the day he died.

Adrian took it, smiled faintly, and said,

“Every broken second has a memory. I can make it remember.”

The next day, the woman never woke up.

But her pocket watch started ticking again.

Soon, people came from all over the city, drawn by curiosity or grief.

Broken clocks, shattered wristwatches, antique pendulums — they all came to Adrian’s table.

And one by one, he repaired them.

And one by one, their owners began to vanish.

A young police officer, Eli Ward, was assigned to investigate.

He arrived one evening, rain streaking the glass, the air thick with dust and oil.

Inside, hundreds of clocks lined the walls — every one of them ticking, but none in sync.

It was like standing inside a heart that didn’t know which beat to follow.

Adrian sat at his workbench, eyes hollow, fingers moving with surgical grace.

Eli approached carefully.

“Mr. Vale,” he said. “We’ve had… reports. People disappearing after visiting your shop.”

The old man didn’t look up.

“They’re not gone,” Adrian murmured. “They’re preserved.”

“Preserved?”

“Time doesn’t end, Officer. It only hides. I just keep it safe for them — until they’re ready to come back.”

Eli frowned. “May I see your workshop?”

Adrian gestured silently to the back door.

The officer stepped through — and froze.

Hundreds of clocks filled the room, their faces open, their mechanisms humming.

Inside each one, instead of gears, there were tiny moving images — people, frozen in mid-laughter, mid-breath, mid-life.

Each clock held a moment.

Each moment was alive.

And in the center stood a single, massive grandfather clock — its pendulum slow, its face covered in fogged glass.

Eli wiped it clean with his sleeve — and nearly dropped his flashlight.

Behind the glass was a reflection of himself, perfectly still.

Then, his reflection blinked.

The clock struck once.

Eli stumbled back, gasping — his watch vibrated violently on his wrist.

When he looked down, it had stopped at 8:47 p.m.

The exact time he’d entered the shop.

He turned to run, but the door was gone.

Only Adrian’s voice filled the air, calm and trembling:

“Don’t fight it. Everyone deserves a perfect moment. You’ll understand when yours begins.”

Days later, the shop was empty again.

The clocks still ticked — uneven, endless.

But one new piece stood in the front window: a police badge, hanging from a chain, beneath a newly restored wristwatch.

Its hands pointed forever to 8:47.

When demolition crews came months later, they said the building felt “alive.”

And when the walls fell, every single clock stopped at once — except for one.

The grandfather clock.

Its pendulum still moved, slow and steady, whispering through the dust.

If you listened closely, you could hear a faint voice within the ticking —

a man whispering, “Just one more second.”

⏳ Theme:

The human fear of loss — and the obsession to preserve time, even if it means losing yourself to it.