The Clock That Wept

Everyone thinks time moves forward.

That each tick of the clock pushes us ahead
toward growth, toward age, toward death.
But what if I told you... time doesn’t move at all?

It waits.
And sometimes… it watches you break.

My name is Elias. I was born in a town where the air smelled of old wood, and the silence of the streets was interrupted only by one thing: the Clock Tower. Every hour, it cried out—a deep, echoing sound that reminded us we were alive… and running out.

I was seven when I first asked my grandfather, “Why does the clock cry?”

He looked at me with tired eyes.
“Because it knows,” he said. “It knows what you don’t.”

I didn’t understand then. But the older I grew, the more I felt it: the burden of time.
Birthdays stopped feeling like celebrations.
New Years became reminders of what I didn’t achieve.
And every tick of the second hand started to sound more like a warning than a rhythm.

By the time I turned thirty, I had stopped living.

I was a shell working, eating, sleeping—but never being.
Until one day… the clock tower stopped.

No chime. No ticking. Nothing.

The entire town felt it. People gathered outside, staring up at the silent tower as if it had died. For them, it was eerie. For me… it was an invitation.

That night, I returned alone.

I broke the lock and climbed the spiral staircase, step by step, breath by breath. Dust hung in the air like ghosts of forgotten moments. And at the top, in the heart of the clock, I found something that should not have existed:

A boy.

He looked exactly like me.
Same eyes. Same birthmark. Same scar on the eyebrow.

But he was seven.

Sitting cross-legged, watching the gears, smiling.

“You came,” he said.

My throat dried. “Who... what are you?”

“I’m you. The part that never moved on.”

I staggered back.

“You left me here,” he continued, “when you started counting minutes instead of making memories. When you began measuring life by deadlines instead of daydreams.”

I wanted to speak but guilt choked me.

He stood up and walked toward a small gear at the edge of the clock’s mechanism.

“This is where time stopped,” he whispered. “Not for the world just for you.”

And he pointed to the center of the gears, where a memory played like a film reel.
It was me at twenty-four kneeling by a grave.
My mother’s.

“I locked everything away after that,” I muttered.

He nodded. “You thought stopping the pain would stop the clock. But it only stopped you.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “I want to start again.”

“You can’t start time,” he said, “but you can start moving. That’s enough.”

I turned to leave but paused. “Will I see you again?”

He smiled. “Only when you forget to live.”

When I climbed down, the clock tower ticked once more. Just once.

That was ten years ago.

Now, I don’t wear a watch. I don’t count hours.
I collect moments.
Sunrises. Laughter. Quiet walks. Real tears.

Because time isn’t something we lose.

It’s something we leave behind when we forget to feel.

But there’s one thing I never told anyone. A month after the clock restarted, I began dreaming of places I had never been. Long winding rivers. Cold mountaintops. Cities with voices I couldn’t understand but emotions I felt deeply. Each dream started with the same sound—the tick of that tower.

In one dream, I met a woman who held my hand and whispered, "You’re almost caught up. Keep going."

I woke up crying. And I didn’t even know why.

So I started traveling. I stopped fearing lost time and began chasing it instead. And everywhere I went, the same boy appeared
sometimes in the form of a child on a bicycle, other times in a mural on a broken wall.

Always smiling. Always watching.

Now, as I write this in a café beside a nameless lake, I can hear the distant toll of a bell.

Maybe it’s another clock tower. Or maybe it's just my past, reminding me how far I’ve come.

One thing I know for sure:

Time is not a river you ride.

It’s an ocean you learn to swim in.

And sometimes, just sometimes, it reaches out and pulls you to shore.

Thank you very much for reading!❤️