The Clockmaker's Apprentice

The old man's hands were a map of gears, etched with the grease of a thousand midnights. He taught me how to listen to the heartbeat of brass, to find the one tooth in a hundred that snagged on the fabric of a second.

I learned the language of the escapement, the rhythmic chatter of time being sliced into thin, digestible wafers. We built cages for the infinite, gilding the bars with Roman numerals.

Now the shop is silent, save for the ghosts of ticks that still echo in the floorboards. I carry a pocketful of tiny screws, the weight of his silence pressing against the mainspring of my own heart.