The Immortal Gazette: The Clockmaker
The room was a bit quieter tonight, save for the soft ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece. Alice and Loki were once again in close proximity, though this time, their conversation seemed to be drifting from light teasing to something a little more serious—if that was possible. Rumplestiltskin, as always, observed them with an amused glint in his eyes, but his attention shifted quickly to the impending tale.
“Tonight’s story is an odd one,” Rumplestiltskin said, his voice echoing in the dim light. “It’s about time. Literally. The story of a man who could bend time itself to his will—at least, he thought he could.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. “Oh, time manipulation. That sounds like a fun one. Does he get into a horrible mess because he tampered with it?”
Alice chuckled. “Please tell me he wasn’t one of those ‘great, but misunderstood’ geniuses who thought they could control the universe.”
Rumplestiltskin gave a wicked grin. “Oh, he certainly thought he could. Let me tell you about the man known as The Clockmaker.”
The Clockmaker: The Master of Time
Once upon a time, in a bustling town hidden far from prying eyes, there lived a man known only as The Clockmaker. His shop was filled with every kind of clock imaginable—grandfather clocks, pocket watches, mantel clocks, cuckoo clocks—all of them in various stages of repair. His hands were steady and sure, his mind sharp, and his eyes filled with a strange obsession. To him, time wasn’t something to be respected or measured—it was something to be mastered.
“You know, there’s something about clocks that intrigues me,” Loki mused, glancing at the various timepieces in the room. “I wonder if this Clockmaker is like one of those mad geniuses who tries to control the clock’s hands. You know, for personal gain or something.”
Rumplestiltskin nodded. “Exactly. But this Clockmaker was different. He wasn’t content with simply repairing clocks or crafting new ones. No, he believed he could fix time itself. He wanted to be the one to determine when life began, when it ended, and, most dangerously of all—he wanted to stop it.”
Alice let out a low whistle. “Talk about ambitious. But how does a clockmaker think he can mess with the fabric of time?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Rumplestiltskin said, settling into his storytelling rhythm. “The Clockmaker believed he could create a timepiece unlike any other—one that could stop time for as long as he wished. He worked day and night, obsessed with his creation, until he finally forged the perfect clock—a grand, intricate masterpiece with gears that could turn the tides of fate.”
Loki’s eyes widened. “So this guy built himself a time-stopping clock? And he thought he could just... play with time as if it were a toy?”
“Exactly,” Rumplestiltskin grinned. “He was so sure of his brilliance. He even went as far as to say that no one could stop him. Time, he thought, was a man-made illusion that he could conquer with a mere twist of a gear.”
Alice scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’m guessing this didn’t end well.”
Rumplestiltskin continued, ignoring her. “The Clockmaker was so confident that he decided to test his creation. He wound the clock, set the hands, and waited for the moment when time would come to a standstill. And it did. For one brief, glorious instant, time froze. Nothing moved. No one breathed. The world was his to control.”
Loki chuckled. “That sounds exhilarating—but also, I have this nagging feeling that this wasn’t going to go according to plan.”
Rumplestiltskin nodded gravely. “Ah, but here is where his mistake lay. In that moment of power, the Clockmaker realized something he hadn’t anticipated: time itself is not meant to be controlled. It’s a force beyond the reach of any mortal man, no matter how brilliant. And when he tried to move the hands again, to restart the world, something... shifted.”
Alice sat forward. “What happened? Did he break time?”
“Not just break it,” Rumplestiltskin said with a wry smile. “He fractured it. He couldn’t put the pieces back together. The gears of his clock had become entangled with the flow of time, and now every time he tried to fix it, he created more distortions.”
Loki’s face took on an amused expression. “So now we have a guy who ruined time, and it’s all his fault?”
Rumplestiltskin gave a dark laugh. “Exactly. And to make matters worse, the distortion didn’t just affect time—it affected his very life. Days turned into weeks, months into years. He’d wake up one day as a young man, the next as an old man, and the day after that, he’d find himself in a time long before his birth. He couldn’t escape it.”
“Talk about a living nightmare,” Alice said, her voice laced with dark amusement. “Imagine getting caught in a loop like that. Ugh. I’d go mad.”
Rumplestiltskin’s eyes glimmered. “Oh, he did. It didn’t take long before the Clockmaker lost his mind entirely. He became a shadow of his former self, forever chasing the hands of his broken clock in a desperate attempt to fix what couldn’t be fixed.”
The Final Lesson
Loki crossed his arms. “So the moral of the story is... don’t mess with time, right?”
“Exactly,” Rumplestiltskin said. “Time is a force that can’t be controlled, no matter how hard you try. Some things are meant to remain beyond the grasp of mortals. The Clockmaker’s downfall was his refusal to accept that—his obsession with bending time to his will led to his ultimate ruin.”
Alice’s tone shifted, as she leaned back in her chair. “I get it. He wasn’t just a clockmaker—he was a fool. And that’s what makes his story so... tragic.”
Rumplestiltskin’s eyes twinkled with something mischievous. “Oh, I wouldn’t say fool... more like someone who had too much hubris. But yes, in the end, the lesson is clear: some things are better left alone, even if you have the power to change them. There are no shortcuts when it comes to time.”
Loki shook his head, amused. “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like, trapped in a cycle like that. I’d probably just... well, snap.”
“Exactly,” Rumplestiltskin said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “And that’s what the Clockmaker did. But when the clock finally stopped ticking, it was too late to fix what he’d broken.”
Alice chuckled softly. “You know, Rumple, you do have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Ah, yes,” Rumplestiltskin said with a sly grin. “It’s what makes my tales so memorable, my dear.”
As the story settled into the quiet of the room, the clocks on the walls ticked on, each second slipping into the past, a reminder of what the Clockmaker had lost—and what all of them had learned.
🖋️✨📜🖤
