Jasper Hale opened his shop the way he fixed watches: deliberately, with a practised hand and a tiny noise that meant everything was in its right place. The front door sighed back against the frame, the same hinge he'd adjusted last winter, and sunlight slanted through the single high window to catch the oils and brass on his bench. A bell—more brass than bell—tinked once, obligingly, as if approving the day.
Outside, the square was already assembling its usual morning commerce. Bright's stall sent the smell of warm brioche and cinnamon along the street, their spiral buns stacked like little coiled springs. A woman from the tea cart, who always wore an enormous wool hat stitched with impossible daisies, waved a ladle and called customers by pet names as though every morning were a play. None of that belonged to Jasper's calculations, but the rhythms of the market meant something: people queued for comfort and gossip; pastry crumbs settled into corners; the town's clock tower—a blunt silhouette on the far side of the square—kept its own indifferent schedule.
Inside, the shop was a small world of brass and wood. Pegboards with hooks held files and pliers; a lathe crouched like a patient animal; drawers of pinions and springs sorted by the thinness of a tooth. On the bench lay a child’s novelty clock with a painted smiling sun and a spring that had unraveled into an argument. Jasper set a magnifier on his nose and let the light split into tiny decisions. He liked the work where patience paid in exact measures. He liked that a pinion could be coaxed back into trust with little coaxing and a file. It felt less like forgiveness than precision, which suited him.
A cuckoo in a corner cabinet was currently seven minutes early and insisted on singing a jaunty sea shanty whenever anyone complained about the bus. Jasper liked the absurdities of other people's machines; they reminded him that not all order was his to command. He adjusted a tiny screw, then another, listening to the quiet click the way other people listened to music. The morning had a softness to it—the kind that comes right before a small, avoidable interruption.