On a damp November evening in the little town of Riverton, where the air carried the scent of wet earth and fallen leaves, Edward lingered before the window of an old curiosity shop. The clocks—small and delicate, with worn faces and slender hands—seemed to whisper of days gone by. They reminded him of his grandfather, of the hours he had spent as a boy, mesmerised by the turning gears beneath his magnifying glass. Edward watched as the hands crept forward and realised, with a quiet certainty, that he did not wish to rush. Not now. Not toward the end of eighteen years. Inside, the decision was already made, but outside, there was only grey rain, muddy puddles, and a chill that gnawed at his heart.
Edward entered the courtroom a quarter of an hour late. His soon-to-be ex-wife, Margaret, sat by the window, her hands folded over a folder of papers. Her face was calm, but the restless way her fingers tugged at the corner of a page betrayed her tension. She did not look at him, nor did she seem angry—only waiting, as if this were not the end of their story but merely a business matter. Edward remembered the two of them assembling furniture in their first flat: bickering, laughing, drinking tea right there on the floor. The memory pricked like a shard of glass, and he swallowed it whole, finding no words.
The magistrate moved briskly, sharp as the wind outside. Questions, signatures, stamps—it was over in less than ten minutes. As if all their shared years—the holidays, the quarrels, the nights curled beneath an old quilt—could be wrapped up in formalities.
On the steps outside, Margaret said:
“Don’t forget to have the papers notarised. Today.”
Edward nodded. He wanted to say *sorry* but did not know what for. He wanted to say *thank you* but could not find a reason. Instead, he managed:
“You… look lovely.”
She stared at him as though he were a stranger, then turned and left. Her footsteps were lost in the rain, but the faint trace of her perfume lingered—a ghost of what had been.
Edward stood motionless in the empty courthouse corridor. Somewhere, a door slammed; someone coughed; someone murmured into a telephone. And he wondered: *Is this the end? Or is it the beginning?*
Instead of going home, he drove to his grandfather’s workshop, tucked away in the oldest corner of Riverton, where time itself seemed to have paused. The low-ceilinged room smelled of machine oil and dust. Shelves were crowded with jars of tiny screws, boxes of springs, and an aged poster about horology. The key to the shop still rested in the worn pocket of his old wallet. Edward unlocked the door, flicked on the light. The bulb flickered, then steadied, casting that familiar yellow glow that had strained his eyes 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, feeling every chip and scratch. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from the sudden certainty that they had purpose again. From the drawer, he pulled out an old timepiece he had never finished repairing years ago. He took it apart, laid the gears carefully on the cloth, breathing slowly. Reassembled it. Wound it. *Tick. Tick.* And then—time whispered back as if to say, *I’m still here.*
The next day, he returned. Then again. Three weeks later, he replaced the faded sign with a new one: *Workshop Open.* It hung crookedly on peeling tape but held fast, as if it knew exactly where it belonged.
People came. Elderly ladies brought antique clocks, their eyes bright with cautious hope. Men with expensive watches arrived looking lost, as though the broken mechanism had unsettled their world. Teenagers proposed odd ideas: *Can you make the numbers glow?* Edward listened, nodded, took their treasures into his hands and repaired them. Sometimes, people spoke not of clocks but of their troubles—of divorces, of losses, of things broken inside. And as he fitted each tiny piece, the mechanism would stir back to life.
One day, a young woman walked in—slender, with chestnut hair and a quiet smile. Her name was Evelyn. She carried her father’s old watch, its case scratched, its hands frozen. She watched Edward with doubt, as though afraid it could never be mended.
“Can you fix it?” she asked softly.
He nodded. Worked slowly, pausing—as if listening not just to the mechanism but to her unspoken sorrow.
A month later, Evelyn returned. Without the watch, but with a paper bag holding hot tea and a homemade pie. She came again, just because. One afternoon, as they sorted through a box of tiny screws, she said:
“You don’t just fix clocks. You mend people. Piece by piece. Without them even noticing.”
Edward smiled—not out of politeness, but because he could not help it. His heart, frozen on that grey day in court, had begun to thaw.
A year later, the very same watch he had repaired for Evelyn ticked away in their shared flat. Beside it sat books, a vase of dried daisies, and a photograph of them walking by the river. Edward still ran late—for the market, for the train, for evenings with friends, for this new life that now felt warm and alive.
When Evelyn asked, “Where have you been?” he would answer:
“Where time wakes up. Where you don’t lose it—you find it.”
And that was enough. Because time no longer lived only in the clocks. It walked beside them now, in their steps, in their laughter, in the road they shared.
