The Rewound Hours

Arthur was a creature of habit, especially since Eleanor passed. The house, big and empty, his anchor. One Tuesday, in the attic's dusty gloom, he found it: a forgotten grandfather clock. Blackened oak, intricate carvings. Eleanor had called it "too morbid." Now, it was a silent sentinel, its face a cracked porcelain blank. He dragged it down, a project to fill the quiet.

He spent days on it, old hands meticulous over gears and springs. The clock smelled of forgotten time. Finally, he wound the key. A hesitant *tick*… *tock*. Then a strong rhythm. He stood back, a rare flicker of pride. Then he saw the hands. They moved, undeniably, counter-clockwise. He chuckled, dry and raspy. "Always had a mind of your own," he mumbled. A quirk. He left it by the fireplace.

The small things started. That mug of tea he’d knocked off the table, shattered porcelain and brown liquid? He found it whole an hour later, a ghost stain on the rug vanishing. His vision, perhaps. Then, a deep gouge he’d put into his mahogany desk just yesterday. He ran a finger over smooth, unblemished wood. Not a mark. His heart thumped. He looked at the clock. It ticked, backwards, with defiance.

The house itself began to feel… younger. Faint patterns in the wallpaper, covered by Eleanor’s redecorating whims, now subtly resurfaced. A faded photograph of Eleanor, vibrant on their honeymoon, sharpened. Colors deepened. The soft lines around her eyes, those crinkles he remembered, smoothed out. Her smile seemed to bloom. He reached out, fingers trembling. Her *young* face looked back.

Dread, cold and slick, began to coil. This wasn't just a quirky clock. This was… unmaking. His past wasn’t just memories; it was a physical force, pulling things back, making them *unhappen*. Eleanor’s death. The paramedics, the terrifying finality. What if the clock could reach that far? What if it could pull *her* back? The thought was a cruel hook, twisting.

He staggered towards the clock, breath ragged. He had to stop it. He grabbed the pendulum, yanked. His fingers slipped through the brass weight as if it were a mirage. He tried again, sweat beading. Nothing. His hand just met empty space. He raised his fist to smash the glass. It connected with air, a faint ripple. The backwards ticking continued, loud, relentless.

Days blurred. He stopped eating, just watched the clock. Cracks in the ceiling, patched years ago, slowly widened, then closed, then vanished, leaving smooth plaster. The worn armchair started to shed its faded fabric, revealing an older pattern. The smell of dust and old wood grew stronger, as if the house was exhaling centuries.

Then he saw her. A glimpse. In the hallway mirror. Eleanor. Not fully formed, a flicker, a young woman in a dress from decades past, turning her head. He cried out, choked, desperate. He lunged, but she was gone, leaving only his own gaunt, horrified reflection. He looked at the clock. The hands spun faster now, a dizzying blur. The house groaned, timbers unsettling.

He felt a peculiar lightness in his own limbs, a sensation of… un-aging. His hands, gnarled and spotted moments ago, seemed smoother. The lines around his eyes, shallower. He felt younger, yes, but it wasn't right. Not *him*. Like being unravelled. He stumbled towards a window, but the glass was murky. The garden outside, once neat, was overgrown, wild with unfamiliar plants, forgotten species.

The image of his wife flickered again, clearer now, near the clock. Younger still. Her eyes wide, questioning, from their courtship. She lifted a delicate hand, held it out, inviting him. Not to join her, he realized, but to join the unmaking. He could feel it, the pull, the subtle tug on his very being. His memories rearranged themselves, experiences shifting, like sand in an hourglass turned upside down.

The clock hands blurred to a dizzying vortex. Then, the bell began to chime. Not for the hour, but a deep, resonant, impossibly long vibration that seemed to shake the house, and him. A single, profound *bong*, then another, each one pulling him further back, away from himself. The sound was not of time passing, but of time *being unmade*, each toll a dissolution, an erasure. The chime continued, echoing through the house, through him. *Bong*. *Bong*. *Bong*. He looked at his hand. It wasn't quite his own anymore. Thinner, smoother, less familiar. The clock chimed again. *Bong*. And again. *Bong*.