Still Ahead: The Time That Returns
On a bleak November evening in the town of Rivermere, thick with the scent of damp earth and fallen leaves, Edward lingered by the window of an old antique shop. The clocks inside—small and delicate, with worn faces and slender hands—seemed to whisper of the past. They reminded him of his grandfather, of the days when he, still a boy, would peer through a magnifying glass, mesmerised by the turning gears. Edward watched the hands crawl forward and suddenly realised: he didn’t want to rush. Not now. Not toward the end of eighteen years of his life. Inside, the decision was already made, but outside, there was only grey rain, muddy puddles, and a chill that ached in his chest.
Edward entered the courtroom fifteen minutes late. His almost ex-wife, Eleanor, sat by the window, her hands folded over a stack of documents. Her face was calm, but her fingers, fidgeting with the corner of a page, betrayed her tension. She didn’t look at him, didn’t glare—just waited, as if this weren’t the end of their story, but a mere business meeting. Edward remembered how they once assembled furniture together in their first flat: bickering, laughing, sipping tea right on the floor. The memory pricked like a shard of glass, and he swallowed it, unable to find the words.
The judge was brisk as the wind outside. Questions, signatures, the stamp of approval—it all took less than ten minutes. As if their shared years—holidays, arguments, nights under an old blanket—could be reduced to a handful of formalities.
On the way out, Eleanor said:
“Don’t forget to get the papers notarised. Today.”
Edward nodded. He wanted to say *sorry*, but didn’t know what for. He wanted to say *thank you*, but couldn’t find a reason. Instead, he managed:
“You… look beautiful.”
She stared at him as if he were a stranger, then walked away. Her footsteps dissolved into the sound of rain, and the faint trace of her perfume lingered in the air like a ghost of what they’d lost.
Edward stood frozen in the empty courthouse corridor. Somewhere, a door slammed. Someone coughed. A voice murmured into a phone. And he thought: *Is this the end? Or the beginning?*
Instead of heading home, he drove to his grandfather’s old workshop in a quiet corner of Rivermere, where time seemed to stand still. The small room, with its low ceiling, smelled of oil and dust. Shelves were cluttered with jars of screws, boxes of springs, and an old horology poster. The key still sat in his battered wallet, tucked in a worn pocket. Edward unlocked the door, flicked on the light. The bulb flickered, then steadied, flooding the space with the same yellow glow that used to make his eyes ache as a boy.
The clock on the wall ticked, as if keeping the rhythm of his life. Edward sat at the old workbench, running his fingers over its rough surface, tracing every dent and scratch. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from the sudden certainty that they had purpose again. He pulled out a broken timepiece he’d never fixed years ago, dismantled it, laid the gears on a cloth, his breathing steady. Reassembled. Wound it. *Tick.* Another *tick.* Then, suddenly—time whispered back, as if to say: *I’m still here.*
The next day, he returned. And the day after. Three weeks later, he replaced the faded sign with a new one: *Open for Repairs.* It hung crookedly on peeling tape, but it held firm, as if it knew its place.
People came. Elderly women brought antique clocks with cautious hope in their eyes. Men with expensive watches arrived flustered, as if the broken mechanism had upended their world. Teenagers proposed odd requests: *Can you make the face glow?* Edward nodded, took their treasures in hand, and fixed them. He listened. Sometimes, people spoke not of clocks but of their own battles—divorces, losses, things broken inside. And as he slid a gear into place, the mechanism would whir back to life.
One day, a young woman walked in—petite, with chestnut hair and a soft smile. Her name was Charlotte. She carried her father’s old watch, its case scratched, its hands frozen. She watched Edward with doubt, as if fearing it was beyond repair.
“Can you fix it?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. Worked slowly, pausing now and then, as if listening not just to the mechanism but to her unspoken sorrow.
A month later, Charlotte returned. Without the watch, but with a paper bag containing hot tea and a homemade tart. Then she came again, just because. One day, as they sorted through a box of screws together, she said:
“You don’t just mend clocks. You put people back together. Piece by piece. Without them even noticing.”
Edward smiled—not out of politeness, but because he couldn’t help it. His heart, frozen on that grey day in court, began to thaw.
A year later, the very watch he’d repaired for Charlotte ticked away in their shared flat. Beside it sat books, a vase of dried daisies, and a photo of them by the riverside. Edward still ran late—for the vegetable market, for trains, for evening gatherings, for this new life that now felt warm and alive.
When Charlotte asked, *”Where were you?”* he’d reply:
“Where time comes alive. Where you don’t lose it, but find it.”
And that was enough. Because time no longer just ticked inside clocks. It moved with them—in their steps, their laughter, their shared road ahead.
