Tick and the Confetti Clause

Marnie Ticktock's shop smelled of oil, lemon polish, and the faint, stubborn sweetness of burnt toast. It was a scent that belonged to things that had been mended a thousand times and insisted on continuing their lives, as if stitches and small bolts whispered encouragement into the fabric of the world. The front window displayed clocks of every temperament: a sleepy porcelain cuckoo that yawned at noon, a brass pocket watch that refused to open unless spoken to in rhyme, a wall clock with a face like a sleepy cat. Outside, Wickfield's cobblestone street shone as if the rain had only just been invented. Inside, Marnie balanced on a stool, a magnifying glass at monocle angle, and coaxed a gear the size of a pea back into a grandfather clock's ribcage.

Her fingers smelled of metal and breakfast. She hummed a tune she had been inventing for years and never finished because the second verse required a screwdriver that only existed in a dream. Agnes Pritchard, who lived above the bakery and ran a needlepoint league for those with a fondness for dramatic punctuation, came in like a hurricane in slippers. "Morning, love. You have new customers? Or is that just a swarm of pigeons with punctuality issues?" she asked, peering at the glass. Agnes's hair was the sort of white that caught light and filed it away; her laugh triggered small avalanches of crumbs from the pastry display.

Rafi, a lanky teenager who delivered awkwardly enthusiastic tech suggestions to anyone who would listen, stayed glued to the doorframe. His backpack contained at least three soldering irons, a collection of battery-powered hopefuls, and a poster that proclaimed: 'Hack Your Life — Tame the Appliances.' He blinked at the clocks like someone who expected every second to do a cartwheel. "Marnie, you know the Council is doing something with time today, right? Big announcement at ten. I could stream it and we can live comment with spice."

Marnie laughed, and the sound was like a loose spring snapping back into place. "If the Council wants me to set my days by some official chant, I'll charge them double." She worked the gear until it clicked into a place that felt right. Down the street, a bell started its ritual nervous tic. Buttons, a dachshund with a nose for screws and a talent for flopping dramatically in the sun, rolled through the door and deposited a half-eaten biscuit on the threshold as if bribing the clocks to be kind.

Above the hummed ritual of timepieces, the radio in the corner — an old thing with a tendency to talk philosophical nonsense at three in the morning — smoked slightly and then cleared its throat. "Citizens of Wickfield," it announced with a voice that could polish silver by suggestion, "today marks the first day of the Great Synchronization." The words fell into the shop like a letter dropped into a fountain: deliberate, cool, and an inch too formal for anyone's taste. Outside, people slowed, their footsteps turning into conversations with their own shoes.