The clock maker's last wish

 

Experimental Short Story Series #52
Title: “The Clockmaker’s Last Wish”
Short Theme: A lonely clockmaker builds a clock that can freeze a single moment in time—forever. But when time stands still, he learns that eternity isn’t peace... it’s a prison.

In a forgotten quarter of a city that no map names, lived a man who counted life not in years, but in ticks.

Tick. Tock. Breathe. Work. Tick again.

He was the last clockmaker of a dying tradition, surrounded by brass gears, glass domes, and the kind of silence that grows thick and permanent. People no longer came to mend time—they simply bought new time, digital and disposable.

But the clockmaker, grey-bearded and bent, still labored beneath an oil lamp. For years, he worked on a single timepiece. One he called Aakhiri Tamanna—The Last Wish.

This was no ordinary clock. It held a chamber of starlight, a pendulum made from the bone of a meteor, and a mechanism so intricate even the moon seemed to slow when it chimed.

Its purpose? To freeze a single moment. One heartbeat. One breath. One memory. Forever.

The old man wanted to capture the last moment he saw her—his wife, long passed, who once danced barefoot in their kitchen while he hummed a tune only she understood.

He’d waited years for the right moment, and one winter night, as snow whispered against the windowpanes and the scent of jasmine tea lingered like a memory, he turned the brass key and whispered, “Now.”

The clock struck midnight.

And everything stopped.

The snow halted mid-fall. Tea steam hung unmoving. The tick-tock faded into a hush that blanketed the world.

She appeared, glowing, just as he remembered—barefoot, smiling, mid-twirl.

He had done it. He had frozen time.

But minutes didn’t pass. Neither did hours. No sleep, no hunger, no change. The moment was beautiful, but unmoving. Eternal.

He called her name. She did not blink.

He reached out. Her smile did not waver.

He screamed.

But silence—eternal silence—does not echo back.

He had trapped himself inside perfection.

And outside the shop, the world moved on. Generations passed. Clocks broke. Time healed. Buildings crumbled.

Only the clockmaker's shop remains, half-buried in ivy. If you listen closely near the keyhole, some say you’ll hear a tick. Or a whisper. Or a song no one sings anymore.

And the sign above the door, carved in fading wood, reads:

“Time stopped here. So love could last.”

Why We Tell These Stories
This is entry #52 in our Experimental Short Story Series—an ongoing exploration of surreal fiction, metaphysical mysteries, and modern myths. At farazparvez1.blogspot.com, our stories don’t just pass the time… they challenge it.

Penned by Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal, former faculty member of Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA, under his literary pseudonym Faraz Parvez, each narrative is a door to worlds both strange and spiritual.

Read. Reflect. Return.
Another story awaits tomorrow. Will you step through?


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