NOAH HOFFMAN
Clockwork In a little village somewhere south of nowhere, where everyone knew everyone and there was no such thing as privacy, the old man sat at the workbench in his tinker shop, tirelessly tweaking and adjusting the inner workings of a clock that may have even outpaced him in age. It was a project that he’d obsessed over for months since the ancient piece arrived in an assorted bundle of discarded trinkets, the kind that lined the walls of his shop. There was a collection of wood-carvings done by hand, all small and simple: a pair of wooden dolls that could have been Hansel and Gretel, though no one could tell for sure and no one wanted to buy them because of their cracked-button eyes; a couple of toy swords with polished, dull blades that were spotted hither and thither with nicks and dents from too much use by overeager boys rescuing the fair maiden from the dragon; and innumerable other odd items that typically fill a tinker’s shop. Since he had discovered that clock, with its prim Roman numeral face, thin silver hands, and shiny-smooth cherry wood frame, the old man had not been seen without it. Every time a customer entered his shop, the man was sitting at his workbench, grumbling about some stubborn spring or cog that refused to fit properly in its place. Often he would neglect to appreciate the presence of a customer unless they were to address him directly, after which he would merely raise his head for but a moment in obligated acknowledgement and return immediately to his work. Should a question regarding one of his wares be put forth for his response, he always made a terse, gruff reply in as few words as he could muster. It goes without saying that his sales dropped considerably in their frequency. Hardly a week had gone by since the clock had appeared before the villagers began to notice the lights of the old man’s shop burning long into the night. They all knew he was working on that clock, that “ceaselessly frustrating piece of useless machinery” as the old man called it. A short time after that, whispers began bubbling through the village that he could sometimes be heard speaking to the clock, rebuking it as a righteous parent would reprimand a naughty child. The village children made a game out of sneaking up to his window and pressing their ears to the face of the building, hoping maybe to PROSE 27
