Words by Joseph William // illustration by Liu Yutong
It ticks too loudly.
You’ve thought about moving it before, but the idea never quite lands. The clock belongs there, in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the lounge, where the afternoon light filters in through the frosted glass and paints its face in gold.
Its sound used to be comforting, a steady rhythm marking out the days when you had things to look forward to. Now, it’s just loud. Too aware.
You walk past that clock daily.
Each morning you catch your reflection in the curved glass, distorted and fleeting. Sometimes you pause, just for a second, to straighten your collar or rub the sleep from your eyes. You always promise you’ll replace the clock’s battery before it runs out completely. You never do.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
The emails come in bursts, the bills pile up, the voices from the TV babble on about politics and floods and interest rates. You tell yourself that this is what life is supposed to be – not happy exactly but maintained. Steady. Manageable.
You walk past that clock daily.
Until one Thursday morning, one of those mornings that feels like all the others, something changes. The clock has stopped. Its hands are locked at 8:17. You press your ear against it, but the tick is gone. You sigh, pull it from the wall, and open the back, ready to replace the battery.
Inside, instead of a corroded metal coil or dust or nothing at all, there’s a folded slip of paper wedged between the gears. It’s thin and yellowed, soft like old skin. You unfold it carefully.
The handwriting is yours.
“Go back to the park bench. Don’t miss it this time.”
You laugh, a dry, disbelieving sound. You haven’t written that note. You don’t even recognise the words. You check the date on your phone just to feel grounded. Thursday, 8:17 AM.
You leave for work anyway, as you always do. But halfway down the driveway, you stop. Because something about that message itches at your brain. A park bench. The park? That park?
You turn left instead of right.
The park looks the same as it did years ago. The same cracked pathway, the same peeling paint on the swing set. The same bench under the same giant elm tree that drops golden leaves like confetti.
And on that bench sits a woman.
You know her instantly.
Not because you’ve seen her recently, but because you’ve tried so hard to forget her face.
You were supposed to meet her here once. Years ago. You didn’t show. There was a job interview that day, and you told yourself that was more important. You never saw her again.
But here she is, turning her head toward you, smiling that same crooked smile that always made you lose your train of thought. You don’t even think as you walk toward her.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” she says, voice soft, familiar.
You sit beside her.
The world feels lighter. The years between then and now blur like fog dissolving in the sun. She laughs at something you say – you don’t even remember what – and you swear the sky brightens.
And then you blink.
The bench is empty. The air is still. The light has shifted.
You’re alone again.
You walk home, heart pounding, unsure if you’ve just dreamed it. The hallway greets you with its familiar smell of dust and coffee. You hang your coat. You look at the wall.
The clock ticks again.
8:18.
You stare at it. Then open the back once more. Another slip of paper waits inside. “You can’t change what’s gone. But you can listen next time.”
You lean against the wall, staring at the clock as it resumes its relentless rhythm. The sound doesn’t feel loud anymore. It feels alive. Like a pulse. Like a reminder.
Tomorrow, you think, maybe you’ll go to the park again.
Not to change time.
But to stop letting it slip past.
You walk past that clock daily.
But now, every time you do,
You listen.
