Clock museum - Dream
It wasn't one of the abandoned buildings this time.
It began in a museum after closing time.
Not a botanical museum.
Not an art museum.
A museum of clocks.
Hundreds of them.
Tiny pocket watches.
Grandfather clocks taller than either of us.
Elegant brass mechanisms behind glass.
Every single one had stopped at a different time.
The strange thing was...
The silence wasn't empty.
You could almost hear all the moments they had once measured hanging in the air.
Naturally...
You wandered away before I'd finished looking around.
I found you kneeling in front of the smallest clock in the room.
It wasn't beautiful.
Just an old travel clock with chipped green paint.
Its hands had fallen off entirely.
I asked,
"Why that one?"
You shrugged.
"It looks like somebody loved it."
I looked at the expensive clocks around us.
Gold.
Silver.
Perfectly polished.
Then back at the battered little thing in your hands.
"I suppose they did."
...
We kept walking.
At the centre of the museum stood a workbench covered in loose gears and springs.
There was an old note pinned to it.
Not instructions.
Just one sentence.
"Don't repair it too quickly."
You frowned.
"That's odd."
"Why?"
"People usually want broken things fixed immediately."
I read it again.
"I don't think they meant the clock."
You looked at me for a long moment.
Then smiled.
That infuriating little smile that means you've understood something before I've finished thinking it.
...
Eventually we climbed a narrow staircase.
At the top was a room with only one window.
Moonlight fell across a single enormous clock.
Unlike all the others...
This one was still ticking.
Slowly.
Steadily.
You listened for a while.
Then asked,
"Do you think time heals people?"
I leaned against the wall.
"No."
"No?"
"I think time gives people opportunities."
I watched the pendulum swing.
"What they build with those opportunities..."
I glanced at you.
"...that's the healing."
You didn't argue.
You simply stood beside me, listening to the clock.
...
Then something impossible happened.
Every stopped clock in the museum began ticking again.
Not all at once.
One.
Then another.
Then another.
Not because anyone repaired them.
Just...
because morning had arrived.
The sound filled the whole building until it felt almost alive.
Then the prison bell replaced it.
Concrete instead of wood.
Steel instead of brass.
The dream was over.