Between Seconds

I loved this. Between Seconds felt like stepping into a slow, careful world where every little sound matters — that opening image of the rain-lacquered morning and the pocket watch whose tick is 'a soft coin dropped into velvet' stayed with me for days. Jonas's skipping heartbeat isn't just a trait; it's threaded through the prose so that when he fiddles with watches you feel him trying to mend his own pulse. The cassette scene (the one he never thought he'd listen to) is wrenching — I had to stop and breathe. Otto's three taps and the way Jonas still crosses his t the old way are such human, tender details. The therapist confrontation is tense and satisfying without being melodramatic. This is a quietly devastating story about reclaiming time and family. Highly recommend.

Tight, quiet, and precise. The writing mirrors watchmaking: each sentence is a small gear turning the plot forward. Otto's taps, the kettle's rattle, and the lost city's permits — details are economical but telling. The therapist-as-antagonist arc gives the story a necessary external pressure, and the new friend and radio repairer provide believable moral steadiness. It could have used a touch more on the sister's perspective, but the focus on Jonas's internal rhythm is intentional and effective. Enjoyable and well-crafted.

A short, tender read that stuck with me. Perfectly paced for someone in their late twenties/early thirties — it captures the weird in-between of caring for parents while trying to sort your own life. The radio repairer is a lovely foil to the shady therapist, and the cassette moment is handled with quiet dignity. Felt like a gentle nudge toward healing rather than a shout. Recommended if you like psychological family stories with clean, evocative prose.

This story hit me in an unexpected place. As someone in my thirties dealing with family obligations, the portrait of Jonas juggling his father's stroke rituals, the tiny domestic rituals (tea too hot, crossing a t the old way), and a sister lost to a toxic relationship felt painfully real. The cassette his mother recorded is the pivot — it's the past becoming audible and forcing Jonas to act. The author does a lovely job of making repair work (watches, radios) act as metaphors for healing: delicate, patient, requiring the right tool. The confrontation with the therapist isn't soap-opera; it's a careful unmasking that lets Jonas reclaim narrative control. I especially loved the rainy opening and the way small domestic moments accumulate into something big. A deeply humane story about time and recovery.

I wanted to like this more than I did. There's a lot of lovely atmosphere — the rain, the watch imagery, Otto's taps — but the plot felt a little too neat and predictable. The cassette that reveals the family taboo, the kindly radio repairer, the noble new friend, and the manipulative therapist all slot into familiar roles without much complication. The therapist's unmasking in particular plays out like a cliché: it's satisfying, sure, but I didn't feel the stakes were fully earned. There are also a few pacing issues — mid-story scenes that linger without advancing much — which made parts drag. Still, the writing is pretty and some moments (Jonas polishing his prints, the kettle's single rattle) are quietly affecting.

Brilliant little slice of psychological fiction — and yes, it made me look twice at the clocks in my house. Jonas is the kind of protagonist who creeps up on you: quiet, focused, but carrying this skipped beat that does a lot of narrative heavy lifting. The cassette? Classic haunted audio trope, but used smartly here to open a family taboo instead of triggering cheap scares. Loved the radio repairer (big shoutout to folks who fix things) and that therapist-throwdown felt earned. Not a single wasted scene. Also, the line about a coin dropped into velvet? Chef's kiss. 😌

Lyrical and constricted in the best way — Between Seconds reads like a poem about time disguised as a family drama. The imagery is so exact: 'umbrellas tilting like beetles,' the 'soft coin dropped into velvet' of the tick, the kettle that 'rattled once and went patient.' Those lines give the story an almost musical cadence, which makes the theme of a skipping heart feel structural rather than merely medical. The cassette scene is heartbreaking; I could picture Jonas with the lo-fi hiss in his ears, untangling what his mother left behind. The final confrontation with the therapist felt cathartic and true, less about spectacle and more about reclaiming rhythm. Beautifully written.

Between Seconds does something I don't often see: it uses craft — watchmaking metaphors, precise rhythm, repeated motifs — to mirror psychological repair. Jonas's skipped beat is both a literal symptom and the structural device that shapes the narrative: scenes pause and refill, memories land like birds. The radio repairer and the new friend function as guides but never become caricatures; their interventions feel earned, especially the late-night session where the radio's static and the cassette's hiss overlap. The manipulative therapist is rendered with quiet malice and the eventual confrontation is paced well, serving as a climax that reorients Jonas's agency. If there's a criticism, it's that a couple of transitional scenes could be tightened, but stylistically and thematically the story is very successful — layered, intimate, and controlled.

I appreciated the restraint here. The prose is spare and tactile, and the author trusts the reader with small things: Otto's taps, the kettle's single rattle, the way Jonas polishes his fingerprints off steel. The cassette revelation is handled with grace; it's not shouted at you, it edges into the plot and then demands reckoning. The radio repairer scene gave the story an old-world tenderness that contrasted well with the modern manipulation Jonas has to face. A subtle, affecting read.