The Watchmaker’s Gift

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The Watchmaker’s Gift

In a quiet village nestled between the mountains and a silver river, there lived an old watchmaker named Eli. He was known not just for fixing timepieces but for crafting ones that whispered stories when you wound them up. Legends said he learned his craft from a traveler who claimed to have come from a place where time moved in spirals, not lines.

Eli had no family, except for a curious girl named Mira who visited him after school. She didn’t care much for time but loved the tiny gears, ticking sounds, and the tales Eli wove into each clock.

One rainy evening, Mira found a peculiar pocket watch in his workshop. It had no numbers, only stars that shimmered when you looked closely. Eli grew silent when she asked about it. “That one,” he finally said, “belongs to time itself.”

Of course, that only made her more curious.

She took the watch home without asking, thinking it was broken. But when she opened it at midnight, the room filled with soft starlight, and a door appeared — not on her wall, but in the air. Through it was a library where the books didn’t tell stories — they remembered them.

There she saw moments that hadn’t happened yet — a future where she became a great inventor, where she saved the village from a great flood. She returned before dawn, shaken but inspired.

The next morning, Eli was waiting. He wasn’t angry. He smiled. “Sometimes, we need a glimpse of what could be to understand who we already are.”

He handed her the watch and whispered, “The future listens to those who believe it still holds surprises.”

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