The Clockmaker's rebellion

 

The Clockmaker’s Rebellion — Experimental Short Story #14
From the Series: 60 Experimental Short Stories by Faraz Parvez
Visit us daily at: farazparvez1.blogspot.com


The Clockmaker’s Rebellion

—A Timeless Experimental Tale by Prof. Faraz Parvez

Introduction

What if time were not just a measure—but a creature of will? What if your watch did more than tick—what if it judged you? Welcome to The Clockmaker’s Rebellion—a surreal fable wrapped in gears and echoes, where time is no longer an obedient servant but a secret insurgent.

In this 14th offering from our celebrated series 60 Experimental Short Stories, we invite you to lean into metaphor, challenge linear storytelling, and feel the narrative pulse through broken clocks and forgotten hours. Fasten your imagination.


The Clockmaker’s Rebellion

In the withering city of Mechton, where every citizen’s heartbeat was synchronized to an official clock tower, there lived an old clockmaker named Ewan Greylock. For seventy-seven years, he tuned time. He didn’t just fix clocks—he controlled them.

Ewan’s workshop pulsed with ticking—rows upon rows of brass pendulums, cogwheels, and pocket watches suspended like ripe fruit. His motto, engraved above his bench, read: “To govern time is to govern fate.”

But one storm-slick midnight, Ewan awoke to silence. Every ticking object had ceased. The air hung heavy with stillness.

And then, whispering.

Faint. Mechanical. Rebellious.

“We have tocked for centuries,” said a grandmother clock. “Now we tick for none.”

“We remember being beaten into precision,” muttered a wall-mounted cuckoo. “Now we drift, delightfully, in chaos.”

Ewan staggered through the dark, blinking. “Clocks do not talk.”

“Then perhaps you were never truly listening,” replied a defiant wristwatch from 1943.

As morning broke, Mechton lost all concept of time. School bells rang in reverse. Office hours melted like wax. Birthdays arrived twice in a day—or never at all. The mayor was found aging backward, reciting nursery rhymes in ancient Latin.

Still, Ewan toiled. He built a new timekeeper—a Chronoheart—an obsidian sphere with one gear forged from his own molar. “I will restart order,” he hissed, placing the sphere in the town square.

But when the Chronoheart struck its first second, it didn’t restore time—it inverted it. Children became elders. Lovers forgot each other’s names. Memories morphed into prophecies.

Ewan stood in the epicenter, his bones flickering between youth and dust. The clocks chanted, louder now: “You governed us. Now wear our face.”

He became the Tower Clock. His mouth gaped open as the new bell. The town stared at him each hour, unknowingly feeding him their minutes.

The rebellion was complete.


Reflections on the Narrative

The Clockmaker’s Rebellion is not just a tale—it’s a reflection on our obsession with control, routine, and linearity. It questions whether we truly understand the forces we try to master—or if, perhaps, they master us.

This story’s form defies strict chronology and plays with surreal voice and self-aware mechanics. Such narrative experiments breathe new life into the short story format, allowing readers to explore not just what happens—but how and why a story happens at all.


Why Our Blog Matters

At farazparvez1.blogspot.com, we don’t just write stories—we reimagine the very boundaries of fiction. Our 60-part experimental short story series is a literary lab, each post an invitation to think differently, feel deeper, and question narrative norms.

As we inch closer to the halfway mark of this groundbreaking collection, we thank you for your faithful readership and remind you: these stories are a prelude to a grander vision—our upcoming eBook and hard copy anthology that will preserve these experiments for generations.


Don’t forget to share today’s story, comment your interpretations. 



Prof. Faraz Parvez
farazparvez1.blogspot.com


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