One never knows how precious time is until it is taken. Until it is hidden, ripped away, pocketed inside your enemy’s coat. Slipped behind the bars of eternal ignorance.
The girl tries to keep time as she watches the water drip from the tree branches. She tries to count the seconds by nodding to the beat of the humming dragonflies. But no matter how hard she tries, the numbers slip away, and she is lost in that timeless space once more.
It wasn’t always like this. The girl could remember a time when everything ticked with an inner clock, an inner timepiece that would mark the years, days, minutes, seconds. The whole earth hummed with it, dancing to the beat of Time.
There was the ultimate timepiece, a large round clock that glowed yellow. It would move through the sky, ticking off the hours, until its counterpart, the small, white one, would replace it. Letting even the dreamers know that time was not lost.
But now the yellow timepiece is lost, the white one stuck on its apex, broken, the hands bent and twisted. And the yellow timepiece, the one everyone called the Sun? It hasn’t been seen in so long that even the girl has forgotten what it once looked like.
The girl knows that time is still there, somewhere. Otherwise, her clockwork heart would have stopped ticking some time ago. She places a hand on her chest, just to make sure. There it is, just under her paper skin, the steady ticking of her heart clock.
All is quiet around the girl, except for the dripping water. It slides from the tree branches and hits the ground with a light, chiming sound. For a long time now, the trees have been shedding tears over the loss of the yellow timepiece. Soon, they will no longer have any tears to cry. Then they will shrivel up and rest their heads on each other, letting their inner clockwork rust, harden, and crumble to dust.
The girl stares at the white timepiece, at the bent and broken hands, the warped cogs and withered bolts. Even though it has stopped ticking, white light still shines to earth, illuminating everything around her. Giving her time to think, to ponder a way to fix the broken timepiece, and set time in motion once more.
The girl wonders if she could climb the stars and try to unbend the hands. But to climb the stars would be foolish, for the girl could slip and fall. And who would rescue Time then?
She wonders if she could lasso the white timepiece, bring it to earth, and fix it here. But then, its light would not be able to shine for all the others stuck in the timeless space. They would become lost, and then they too, would stutter and fall.
Gathering her courage, the girl leaves the withering trees behind and makes her way toward where she knows a river flows to the nearest village. If she could reach that village, she could ask the people what she might do to help the white timepiece.
The trip takes longer than the girl thought. But then again, maybe it hasn’t. She follows the beat of her clockwork heart, placing her feet in time to the steady rhythm.
When she reaches the river, the girl looks out at the lights shining in the distance. Even when the yellow timepiece left and the white timepiece broke the people adapted. All of them holding out hope that maybe, someday, the Sun would return.
The girl follows the river. It leads her on a winding path through grass almost as tall as she, grass that hums to its own clock. She pauses when she hears a hum fade. One of the blades shivers. She watches as it turns brown and shrivels. Its clock ended, and so it ended as well. The girl places a hand on her paper chest, muddled thoughts swirling in her mind. She shivers and continues on.
When she reaches the outskirts of the town, she sees an old woman hobbling toward her, a cane in her left hand and a basket in her right. The girl quickens her steps. Her parents had always told her that the old were wise and knew many secrets. Perhaps this woman would know how to fix the white timepiece.
She stops before the woman and bows. “May your clock never falter,” she says in the customary greeting.
The old woman chuckles. “And may your cogs never rust.” The wind tugs at her shawl. “What can I do for you, my daughter?”
The girl likes the way the old woman’s paper skin crinkles around her glass eyes. It makes her look eternally happy. She hopes that when she reaches her age, she will look that happy as well.
“Do you know how to fix the white timepiece?”
The old woman shook her head. “If I knew how to fix the white timepiece, I would have fixed my own rusting cogs years ago.”
A spike of fear sends the girl’s clockwork heart ticking faster. “Are you going to die? Like the white timepiece?”
The old woman pats the girl’s yarn hair. “We all die, at some point. We just have to accept it.”
The girl crosses her arms and shivers. “I would rather not.”
“That is for you to decide, my daughter. Don’t worry about the white timepiece. It served us well, but now it must rest.”
The girl shakes her head. “I will not give up. We need the yellow timepiece back. And it won’t come back until the white timepiece is fixed.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I feel it in my cogs.” The girl presses a hand against her chest. “Right here.”
The woman’s wooden, knobby hands flutter at her. “Away with you. If you can’t accept the truth, then you have no business talking to me.” She hobbled away, metal joints creaking.
The girl watches the old woman go, the cogs in her chest moving a little slower as sadness presses down on her shoulders. If even the old and wise couldn’t tell her how to fix the white timepiece and bring back the yellow then was there any hope?
She continues through the town, stopping travelers and asking them the same question: “Do you know how to fix the white timepiece?” Each one laughs at her and tells her to go home. Her clockwork heart ticks slower and slower with each encounter, until her wooden toes drag through the dust and crystal tears leak down her thin paper cheeks.
In the end, she makes her way into an inn; nothing but the shadows and a dying fire greet her. She clicks to a stop in front of the fire and stares dismally at the burning coal. No one cared enough about the timepiece to even want to fix it. After all, if they did care, they would be helping her find a way. But all they did was laugh and say that if they knew how to fix the white timepiece, they would have fixed it themselves long ago.
“They’re scared.”
The girl jumps at the voice. She searches the shadowy tables. “Who’s there?”
“No one but a bard long forgotten.”
Something next to the fireplace moves, and the girl draws closer. A man sits on a stool next to the stacked stones, his clothing tattered, holes in his trouser legs showing knobby wooden legs and rusted hinges. In his hands he clutches an old and battered lute, one of the strings missing.
He leans forward and the girl can hear the whir and click of his own clockwork heart. The girl gasps as the fire throws light onto his painted face. Where his own gemstone eyes should have been were just holes, delicately cut into the paper of his face. Two big, black holes, allowing the girl to see the clockwork within.
She cocks her head and steps closer. Despite his ragged outward appearance, all of the cogs, hinges, and wheels inside his head are as clean and new as if he were made that very morning. She touches a hand to her own head, feeling the length of her yarn hair.
“Do you have a name?” she asks. “And why are you forgotten?”
He smiles and sits back. “If I had a name once, it has long been forgotten, just like myself. No one here enjoys my company unless they need help.”
“What kind of help?”
“What is your name?”
The girl shrugs. “If I had one, I don’t remember. What kind of help?”
The bard laughs. “You are a clever child. The kind of help you can only get from someone who is a stranger, and someone who cares.” He places a wooden finger next to his nose. “Or someone who knows a thing or two about clockwork hearts.”
Excitement crackles through the girl, and her cogs spin faster. “Then you know how to fix the white timepiece?”
“Yes. And no.”
The girl waits for the bard to say more, but he remains silent. She settles on the floor at his feet. He smiles and picks up his lute. “Let me tell you a story.”
“A long, long time ago, there was a man.” He frowns and shakes his head. “No, that isn’t right.” He strums his lute and music fills the inn. Sweet, gentle music, unlike any the girl had ever heard before. He clears his throat and starts again.
“A long time ago, there was an inventor. A great and mighty inventor, who saw fit to create our world. All of the animals, plants, water, trees. He fashioned them out of material that others thought to be merely waste. He created the world, and then he breathed life into it.
“The world was beautiful and new, and the inventor knew he needed creatures to care for it. And so, he created us. The clockwork people, to tend and care for the world. And he taught us how to care for ourselves. To love one another, as we wished to be loved. To help and heal each other when things turned for the worse.
“The inventor knew that, like all living things, we needed light in order to thrive. So, he created the white timepiece to give us peace at night, and the yellow timepiece, to give us day.
“Everything worked just as the inventor intended. All was right within our little world. It was a paradise that he created to escape his own worries. To escape his own terrible world.
“But not all good things last forever. At least, not those invented by Man.
“Before he knew it, this world started to reflect his own. People began to fight, to hurt each other, to kill, maim, and torture. The world turned dark and the inventor’s heart broke. There was no fixing it, as the inventor was not like you or me. His heart stopped ticking and that was the end of the inventor.
“The white timepiece grew afraid that the world would tear itself apart. So, she made a pact with the yellow timepiece. If things became so bad that even the little ones, like yourself, suffered, the yellow timepiece would hide, and the white timepiece would break herself in order to remind the people that united we thrive, but divided we die.”
The girl blinked. “The white timepiece… broke herself?”
The bard shook his head. “No, in the end it was grief that broke her. Grief over the terribleness of the world.”
The girl shivered. Was the world really as bad as he said? She couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t seem right.
The bard fell silent, his tale at an end. Only the crackling fire, and the whir of their clockwork hearts could be heard. The girl mulls over the story. What did he mean by the story? What lesson was he trying to teach her? The flames in the fireplace begin to wither as the coals turn to ash.
“Are you saying that I can’t fix the white timepiece?” she asks, her voice small in the darkness.
Leaning over, the bard picks up a handful of coals and throws them into the fire. It flares to life, consuming the shiny black coals. He cocks his head and smiles.
“No, dear one. That is something you must decide on your own.” He stands, his rusted joints creaking. The girl scrambles to her feet and follows him as he slowly makes his way across the inn.
She watches him go, disappointed. “Will you not tell me how to fix it?”
He laughs and disappears into the shadows. “Dear child, you already know what you must do.”
He is gone before the girl can say another word. She stares into the shadows. He said she already knew what to do. How could she already know? The reason she came here was to find answers.
There it was, the white timepiece, just above her. The girl reached out and touched its outer rim. It was cold, and it made her wooden fingers stiff. Taking in a deep breath, she pulled out the odds and ends she had gathered and set to work.
After much struggling, the girl soon learned that many of the pieces she found weren’t big enough. But she tried her best, shifting about the wheels, replacing rusted screws with newer, shinier ones. She worked until at last, much of the white timepiece was fixed and she was satisfied with her work.
The girl stepped back. There was nothing she could do for the bent hands. She wasn’t strong enough to fix them herself. She held her breath and waited.
The white timepiece hovered above her, unmoving, its bent and warped hands still. The girl waited and waited, her breath captured in her lungs, her heart full of hope and worry. It had to work. After everything she had done, it had to work.
But it did not. Tears misted the girl’s eyes, and before she knew it, she had fallen back on the pile, gem tears splashing down her cheeks and onto the mangled cogs and wheels beneath her.
Without the white timepiece, there can be no yellow timepiece. Without the white timepiece, everything would continue to die, and soon her world would end. The girl cried harder at the thought.
Slowly, she made her way down the pile until her feet touched the ground once more.
“I’m sorry.” The voice behind her was gentle. “But I wanted you to see for yourself.”
The girl turns to the blind bard. Pity lies within his smile, as well as peace. He holds out his hand. She stares at the knobby, wooden fingers. Then at the holes where his eyes were supposed to be. She nods and takes his hand.
Together, they walk down the street, leaving the white timepiece behind.