Elias was an archival horologist, a man who spent his days repairing clocks that the world had forgotten how to wind. He lived in a city that pulsed with neon and noise, yet his shop was a tomb of silent gears.
Then came Clara. She walked in not with a watch, but with an old, battered shortwave radio. She didn't want it fixed to hear the news; she wanted to find a specific "hum" she remembered from her childhood.
They spent weeks hunched over the workbench. Between the soldering iron and the scent of ozone, they fell in love—not in a rush, but like a slow-winding spring. He loved the way she hummed when she was focused; she loved the steady rhythm of his hands.