Leo Vale had always preferred the company of objects to people. The quiet hum of his antique shop suited him perfectly: the muted ticking of clocks, the faint scent of polished wood and old paper, the gentle dust motes that danced in the streams of sunlight cutting through the windows. He knew the history embedded in each piece—the lives they had touched, the secrets they carried—and he loved them for it. People were unpredictable. Objects, no matter how battered or tarnished, were honest.
His mornings began with tea, his afternoons with cataloguing. Between tasks, he wandered the shop, fingering the edges of objects as if tracing invisible timelines. Rings, compacts, leather-bound journals… every item held a story, and Leo, with his quiet, nerdy attentiveness, was eager to read them.
It was during one of these gentle wanderings that he spotted the watch.
He had no memory of it arriving, no note accompanying it, yet there it lay on a small velvet cushion at the far end of a shelf. The silver case gleamed faintly under the soft shop light, etched delicately with tiny stars that seemed to shimmer when he tilted it. The leather strap was supple, dark as midnight, and the ticking was subtle, steady… almost alive.
He picked it up, feeling its weight in his palm. There was something magnetic about it—something that seemed to resonate with him on a level he couldn't name. Not just craftsmanship, not just history, but something… personal.
He raised it closer, studying the star-etched face. Time moved in perfect precision, hands gliding smoothly, yet as he held it, a strange flutter ran through him, like a whisper brushing the edges of his mind.
And then it came, a thought—not his, jarring in its casualness:
This coffee tastes like disappointment.
Leo froze. His fingers tightened around the watch as if it might slip away if he didn't hold it firmly. He frowned, blinking. He hadn't taken a sip of coffee. The thought, sharp and oddly mundane, carried an undercurrent of something more profound—loneliness, frustration, an unspoken fatigue.
Curiously, almost inexplicably, he felt a pang of empathy, a gentle sadness as if the thought had been meant for him. His heart twisted slightly, not with fear, but with an odd tenderness for a stranger whose existence he had never known.
Leo set the watch on the counter and leaned back against it, staring at the tiny stars etched on the face. The ticking continued, steady, deliberate. His mind buzzed with questions. Who was thinking these things? How could their words slip into his head through a simple wristwatch?
And yet, in the quiet of his shop, he didn't feel afraid. He felt… compelled.
As if the watch had chosen him.