short fiction · 2026-10-30

The Reverse-Counting Clock

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The clock on the wall counts backward. Not down to an event — no launch, no deadline, no appointed hour — but simply backward, second by second, peeling the present away from the future.

At 3:47 it reads 3:46. At 3:46 it reads 3:45. The minute hand moves counterclockwise, a slow unwinding.

Mara watches it from the kitchen table, tea gone cold. She has learned to read the numbers in reverse: each tick a small reclamation. The argument at 4:12 becomes the silence at 4:11 becomes the decision not to speak at 4:10. The spilled milk at 7:03 unspills. The door that slammed at 9:55 unslams, hinges sighing inward.

She does not grow younger. Her knees still ache at what the clock calls 6:20, though yesterday they ached at 6:21. The clock does not give back time. It only rearranges the telling.

At midnight it will reach noon. At noon it will reach midnight. The face is a circle, after all — every ending meets its beginning if you go far enough around.

Mara sets her cup down. The clock ticks 2:14. She waits for 2:13, where the phone never rings.