The Watchmaker's Memory

The shop stood quietly at the end of Rose Street, nestled between a forgotten tailor's boutique and an aging tea house that smelled perpetually of cinnamon and nostalgia. Its sign, faded but proud, read: M. Rehman – Watchmaker. Repairs & Restorations Since 1946.

It was the kind of place most people walked past without noticing. But for those who did enter, time seemed to slow.

The man who ran it, Malik Rehman, was well into his eighties. Stooped but sharp-eyed, he wore a grey waistcoat with small copper gears sewn into the buttons. He rarely spoke unless necessary and never answered questions about the ancient pocket watch always ticking softly in his vest.

Some believed he was a wizard of sorts. Others thought he was just a man haunted by time.

Every day at exactly 8:00 a.m., Malik opened the creaky wooden door. He would sweep the front step, wind every clock inside the shop, and brew a small cup of black tea. No sugar. No milk. Just the bitterness of memory.

One rainy morning, a girl entered the shop.

She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Her jeans were torn, her hoodie too thin for the chill outside. She stood silently, dripping on the wooden floor.

Malik looked up, squinting.

“Yes?” he asked, not unkindly.

“I need something fixed,” she said, her voice cracking.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a broken silver locket watch, its chain frayed, its face cracked, its hands unmoving at 3:17.

“It was my mother’s,” she whispered. “She passed away two months ago.”

Malik held out a gloved hand and inspected it gently, like a surgeon examining a fragile organ.

“This watch doesn’t need fixing,” he murmured. “It needs remembering.”

The girl blinked, confused. “What does that mean?”

He looked at her, eyes gleaming behind round spectacles. “Time doesn't break. People do. Sometimes, when we carry something broken for long enough, we think fixing it will fix us.”

The girl said nothing.

Malik turned away, setting the watch on the table, then pulled out a drawer full of tiny tools and gears, each older than the girl herself. As he worked, she watched.

“You remind me of someone,” he said quietly. “A boy who once came in here—sixty years ago. He brought a broken clock too. Said it had belonged to his father, lost in the war.”

“What happened to him?”

“He waited for the clock to be fixed. Then never came back for it.”

“Why?”

Malik stopped for a long second.

“Because fixing it didn’t bring his father back.”

Silence filled the room again, only broken by the soft tik tik tik of the old wall clocks.

“Why do you do this then?” she asked. “Fix watches, if time can’t be changed?”

He smiled faintly. “Because not all things are meant to be changed. Some are just meant to be understood.”

Malik finished adjusting the locket’s tiny gears. The minute hand twitched, then slowly started moving.

3:18.

The girl gasped softly. “You did it…”

He handed it back. “No charge.”

“But—why?”

“Because some memories should be given, not sold.”

She left, clutching the locket, a little more whole than when she entered.

Malik watched her disappear into the misty street.

He reached into his vest and pulled out his own pocket watch.

3:17.

It hadn’t ticked in over fifty years.

With trembling fingers, he opened the back. For the first time in decades, he wound it.

The second hand moved.

He smiled.

And for the first time in years, he let a tear fall—because some things, even broken things, can start again.