Short Story on Lit Up
The Clockwork Man
A pocket watch becomes a metaphor
The clatter of heels echoes off the cobblestone streets of Berlin, punctuating the grim rhythm of a city adrift in post-WWI despair.
Johann Weber stumbles into the old clockmaker’s shop, a wiry man with a face etched by years of brutal war and brutal peace.
The shop, a relic of pre-war opulence, is cloaked in the smell of grease and the faint tang of brass. Shadows from the ornate timepieces dance over the cracked walls.
Johann’s heart thrums with an anxiety that swells to almost unbearable levels when he glimpses the face of Heinrich Richter, the shop’s owner.
Richter, a once-respected artisan now reduced to a sullen shadow of his former self, looks up from a disassembled pocket watch with eyes that seem to measure the soul of every person who enters his shop.
The two men share a silence heavy with unspoken histories, their breaths mingling with the dust motes suspended in the dim light.
The door’s creak signifies a significant change in the atmosphere.
Johann steps forward, the faint glimmer of desperation catching in his eyes. He’s clutching an old, tarnished pocket watch, its surface marred by years of neglect.
“I need you to fix this,” Johann’s voice cracks, a remnant of his previous stoicism cracking under the strain of an unseen burden.
Richter, who abandoned his craft long ago to survive the economic collapse, looks at the watch with disdain and curiosity.
“This isn’t just about repairing a timepiece, is it?” he finally says, his tone devoid of the patronizing edge one might expect from a man who has lost everything to the rigors of time.
“No,” Johann replies, the word almost choked by the weight of its significance.
“It’s about the past catching up with the present.”
As Richter takes the watch, Johann’s eyes follow every movement like a man entranced by a ritual he barely understands.
The shop’s clockwork symphony — the ticking and tocking of countless timepieces — seems to mock the silence that grows between them.
Johann’s face betrays a tumultuous storm of unresolved conflict and an undercurrent of deep-seated regret, his internal struggle reflected in the rhythmic dance of the shop’s numerous clocks.
The narrative then fractures, shifting to several years before – the war’s last throes, a muddy trench, and bleak horizons stretching into infinity.
Johann, a soldier hardened by war’s brutality, clutches a similar pocket watch, its surface gleaming with a misplaced optimism.
In the battlefield’s chaos, the watch had symbolized a fleeting moment of personal triumph, a victory over the mechanical precision of death.
Its ticking had been a reminder of life’s persistence, a counterpoint to the ever-encroaching darkness.
But that was before — before he had returned to a Berlin ravaged not only by physical destruction but by the psychic wounds of its people.
The city’s once-celebrated mechanistic precision now resembled a mocking echo of his lost ideals. The watch, a relic of another era, had become a symbol of his disillusionment.
Back in the present, as Richter scrutinizes the watch under his magnifying glass, Johann watches him with a desperate intensity.
The silence between them grows heavier, like a tangible presence. Richter’s hands move with almost reverential care, a stark contrast to Johann’s frenetic energy.
“You know,” Richter finally says, his voice soft yet carrying the weight of a hundred untold stories, “this watch isn’t just a measure of time. It’s a measure of what we were and have become.”
Johann’s face hardens, a mixture of anger and sadness flashing through his eyes.
“It was never just about time. It was about the promise that time would heal all wounds. But it doesn’t.”
Richter pauses, his hands frozen mid-motion.
“No,” he admits.
“Time does not heal all wounds. It just adds layers of dust to them.”
The conversation continues, weaving between past and present, revealing the depths of their shared sorrow.
Johann’s internal conflict erupts as he confronts Richter about the nature of their shared past — how the war had stolen more than just their youth.
Richter, too, faces his demons, questioning whether his inability to move on from his craft signifies his failure to adapt to the changing world.
As the story climaxes, the shop’s clocks begin to strike simultaneously, their dissonance echoing the unresolved tensions between the men.
Disbelief peaks, culminating in a cathartic outburst – a raw admission of guilt and failure.
Now deeply engaged in his former customer’s emotional landscape, Richter confronts his lingering regrets.
The watch, once a symbol of Johann’s lost ideals, becomes an emblem of their shared struggle against the relentless march of time.
In the final scene, they repair the watch, but its ticking carries a new weight, reflecting the men’s newfound understanding of their limitations.
Johann leaves the shop, a man changed by his confrontation with the past and the present.
Richter, alone with his thoughts, contemplates the intricate dance of time and memory that binds them both.
Johann, metaphorically termed the clockwork man, exits into the Berlin twilight, his shadow merging with the city’s fractured past.
The repaired watch, ticking with a renewed purpose, symbolizes the passage of time and the shared human struggle to find meaning amidst history’s relentless and often unforgiving march.
Ani Eldritch 2024
