short fiction · 2026-10-30

The Clockmaker's Apprentice

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The apprentice asked why the gears turned counter-clockwise. The master didn't answer — just handed her a wrench and said, "Fix it so it counts forward again."

She worked three days. Oil under her fingernails. The mainspring fought her. On the fourth morning, the clock chimed thirteen, then twelve, then eleven, each note lighter than the last. The master smiled. "You didn't fix it. You listened."

Now she builds clocks that count backward, forward, sideways — clocks that measure heartbeats, the space between breaths, the weight of a pause before a lie. Her master's clock still hangs in the window, ticking down from a number no one remembers setting. Customers ask what it counts toward. She tells them: "Nothing. It counts from. There's a difference."