Chapter-8
---
Chapter 8: The Clock That Skipped a Beat
The clockmaker's shop smelled of brass, oil, and old regrets. Mortimer pushed open the door, and a tinkling bell overhead announced his arrival. On the walls, hundreds of clocks ticked in uneven chorus, some sharp and hurried, some lazy and slow. Yet in all that noise, one sound didn't fit—the deep, deliberate ticking of a grandfather clock standing by the window.
Except its hands weren't moving forward. They were dragging backward.
Mortimer tilted his head, watching the minute hand crawl against the flow of time. The sight made his chest ache, as though the clock itself carried a weight it could no longer bear.
Behind the counter, an old man looked up. His silver hair fell in messy strands over his spectacles, and his fingers trembled even when they were still. "Can I help you?" he asked, voice low, as if afraid of the answer.
Mortimer walked toward the grandfather clock. "That one," he said softly. "It's running away from the present."
The clockmaker froze. His eyes, tired but sharp, flicked to the backward-turning hands. He didn't seem surprised, only ashamed. "I know," he admitted. "I wound it myself, but it will not obey. Every night, I try to fix it. Every morning, it turns again."
"Maybe it's not the clock that needs fixing," Mortimer murmured.
The man's lips pressed thin. "Do children always speak in riddles these days?"
Mortimer ignored the sting. "What is it you don't want to face?"
The words landed like a stone in a still pond. The clockmaker lowered his gaze, his fingers twisting together. "My daughter," he whispered. "She used to come here after school, sit by that very clock, and watch me work. I always told her there'd be time—later—for us to go walking, or for me to attend her school recitals. But there was always another gear to polish, another customer waiting. Then one evening… she left. Said she was tired of waiting for me. That was ten years ago."
The backward tick of the clock grew louder, as though it echoed his confession.
"She sends letters sometimes," the man went on, his voice rough. "But I can't bring myself to read them. Because if I do, it means I must accept the time I threw away."
Mortimer placed his small hand on the wooden frame of the clock. The wood felt cold, burdened. "You're asking time to turn back. That's why this clock refuses to move forward. It's carrying your wish."
The old man laughed bitterly. "And what good would that do? Even if I could step back into yesterday, what could I change? I was who I was—a foolish man too in love with his work."
"You can't change yesterday," Mortimer said, eyes steady. "But you can change today."
The man's shoulders sagged. "You speak like it's simple."
"It is simple," Mortimer replied. "Simple, but not easy."
The clock gave a sharp clang, as though protesting, and its pendulum swung harder in reverse. Mortimer stepped closer until his reflection shimmered faintly in the glass covering the clock face. The boy whispered—not to the clockmaker, but to the clock itself.
"You don't need to carry his regret anymore. Let it go."
The second hand stuttered, faltered, then resumed its strange backward rhythm. The old man shook his head, muttering, "You're just a child. You don't understand."
Mortimer turned to him. "I understand more than you think. Regret is heavier than any gear you've ever lifted. But it isn't supposed to be locked away. It's supposed to be set down."
The clock groaned. The pendulum slowed, like a breath being held.
Tears rimmed the man's eyes. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled envelope, and held it with trembling hands. The paper was worn, the ink smudged, but Mortimer could still see the faint writing: To Father.
The man swallowed hard. "She wrote this years ago. I never dared open it."
"Read it now," Mortimer urged gently.
The man's fingers fumbled with the flap. At last, he unfolded the letter. His lips moved silently as he read, and with every line, his face shifted—from sorrow, to disbelief, to something softer. Tears slid freely down his cheeks. When he finished, he pressed the paper to his chest.
"She forgave me," he whispered. "She said she understood. That she still hopes I'll visit her someday."
The shop felt lighter, as though every clock inside had exhaled. The grandfather clock let out one final tick in reverse, then hesitated. Its pendulum stopped. For a heartbeat, silence filled the room.
Then, slowly, the hands began to move forward again. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The old man wept openly now, the kind of weeping that cleans dust off forgotten corners of the soul. Mortimer simply stood and watched, his eyes calm, his expression unreadable.
When the man finally looked up, he seemed years younger, as if a burden had been lifted. "Thank you," he whispered to Mortimer.
Mortimer shook his head. "Don't thank me. Thank her. She gave you another chance. Don't waste it."
The man nodded fiercely, clutching the letter to his heart. He rushed to the shop's back door, where a coat and walking stick hung. "I'm going to her," he said, half to himself. "Not tomorrow. Today."
Mortimer smiled faintly. "That's the only time we ever truly have."
The bell over the shop door chimed as the old man hurried out into the daylight. The clocks all around the room ticked in harmony again, their rhythms steady and true. Only the grandfather clock lingered, its slow tick almost like a sigh of relief.
Mortimer lingered a moment longer, placing his hand once more on the clock's frame. "Be kind to him," he whispered. "Time is shorter than he knows."
Then he stepped back into the world, leaving the clockmaker to reclaim the moments he thought were lost.
And somewhere far away, a daughter would soon hear the sound of her father knocking—on her door, and on her heart.