short fiction · 2026-10-18

The Gear That Forgot

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

A small brass gear lay idle in the dust of the workshop, its teeth worn smooth from years of turning. Once it had known its place, meshing with a larger wheel to lift the heavy clock’s pendulum, but now the clock was silent, its springs unwound, and the gear could not recall why it had been shaped to fit. It dreamed of rolling away, of becoming a marble in a child’s palm, yet the hollow where its axle should spin reminded it that it was made to engage, not to wander. In the quiet, it listened for the tick that would tell it what to do.