(fairy tale)

In a quiet village nestled between two ancient hills, there lived a clockmaker named Elias. His shop, tucked beneath a gnarled oak tree, was filled with ticking, whirring clocks of every size and shape. But what truly set him apart was the garden behind his workshop—a peculiar place where time itself seemed to bend.

The garden was no ordinary plot of land. It was a riot of colors and sounds, with plants that bloomed in impossible ways. Roses unfurled their petals at midnight, glowing faintly blue under the moonlight. Sunflowers turned not toward the sun but toward unseen constellations in the sky. A single cherry tree stood at the center, its fruit ripening and falling to the ground only to rise again moments later, as if the tree rewound its own seasons.

Elias never spoke of the garden, but the villagers whispered about its magic. Some said it was a gift from the stars; others believed Elias had trapped time itself in the soil. The truth, though, was stranger still.

One rainy evening, a young girl named Mira stumbled into Elias’s shop, clutching a broken pocket watch. “It belonged to my grandfather,” she said, her voice trembling. “Can you fix it?”

Elias examined the watch, its hands frozen at 3:17. He nodded and disappeared into his workshop, returning hours later with the watch gleaming like new. Mira beamed and thanked him, but as she turned to leave, Elias hesitated.

“Wait,” he said with his voice low. “If you could rewind a moment, any moment, what would it be?”

Mira’s smile faltered. She glanced at the watch, then at Elias. “The day my grandfather left,” she whispered. “I’d hold his hand and tell him I loved him.”

Elias nodded solemnly and gestured toward the garden. “Go,” he said.

Confused but curious, Mira stepped outside. The air was thick with the scent of jasmine and something unnamable, like the memory of laughter. She wandered to the cherry tree and sat beneath its branches.

The watch in her hand began to tick backward. The world shimmered, colors bleeding into one another like spilled ink. Suddenly, she was no longer in the garden but in her grandfather’s living room, the air warm with his laughter.

Time rewound itself just enough for a goodbye.

When Mira returned to the shop, tears glistened in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. Elias only smiled and turned back to his work, the soft ticking of clocks filling the air once more.

The villagers never noticed, but the garden was different after that night. The cherry tree stood taller, its fruit riper than before, as if time itself had been made a little kinder.