Fabric of Time
Stuck in an endless loop
By: Dayanna Guerra
A shop filled with clocks was in the middle of Main St. There were rumors that the shop that always smelled like dust and rain gave people more hours. No one knew when this rumor began or when the man inside the shop began to sell hours but people would fly in – to see if they could have more time to live. The man sat behind the counter with hundreds of ticking clocks, each one glowing faintly with a light that didn't quite look natural. If you walked in desperate enough, he’d smile softly and ask “How many hours do you need?”
This was not a one way purchase, it was an exchange. A mother asked for more hours, she wished she could work at night to be able to feed her kids. So she sold her mornings and now no one was home to make her kids breakfast. A business man came in asking for more hours to sleep. The clockmaker simply gives them more hours and stores their purchase in tiny bulbs on his shelves row after row.
The truth is the clockmaker himself didn't have much time. Years had passed and soon he couldn't remember the last dawn he'd seen, or the sound of the full day passing. His clocks kept ticking but he no longer aged, he no longer slept, he no longer dreamed. He was stuck. He was stuck in an endless loop of time.
He told himself he didn't need hours, because he was able to take hours from everyone else. However, the clockman was just an employee of time. Just like everyone else he had to find a way to pay. He lived day and night at the shop, with no way out.
One night, the clockman looked up and realized that the shop was now empty. The shelves did not have a single clock. The shop was quiet as there were no clocks left for sale. There was no time left to sell, no time even for him. The single clock above his head ticked a little slower … and slower. He soon realized that the clock was his own.
He tried to make the clock move faster, using his tools to mess with the clock, slipping his hands through the gears. The air inside was thick and heavy. Outside of the shop, life had moved on. Everyone on Main St. was unaware of what was happening, unaware that time had finally stopped for him and there was about to be no more clockman.
The clock in the clock shop was now silent. The shop slowly began to disappear and the people slowly began to forget that there was once a way to buy more time.