Riazul and the Clockmaker’s Promise

   "Riazul and the Clockmaker’s Promise"

In a quiet town nestled between two sleepy hills, lived a boy named Riazul. He wasn’t particularly loud or adventurous, but he had a strange talent: he could hear the ticking of clocks like they were speaking directly to him.

His grandfather had been a clockmaker—the best in the region—and his tiny workshop, with its brass gears and ticking heartbeats, was where Riazul felt most alive. Each timepiece whispered secrets in soft rhythms. To everyone else, they were just old machines. But to Riazul, they were stories frozen in time.

One rainy afternoon, as Riazul wound a rusted pocket watch, it let out a long sigh—a sound no one else could hear. Then came a whisper:
"Fix me… and you’ll find her."

“Her?” Riazul whispered back. There was no reply.

That night, he dreamed of a girl with starlit eyes and ink-stained fingers, sitting under an ancient tree, reading a book bound in blue velvet. He didn’t know who she was, but the ticking watch in his hand felt warmer when he thought of her.

Determined to uncover the mystery, Riazul spent days restoring the watch. He polished the gears, realigned the springs, and replaced the cracked crystal. When he finally wound it again, the ticking became music—a melody that led him outside the town, past the river, and into a forgotten grove where time felt slower.

There, under the old tree from his dream, was Barishu—the girl with the starlit eyes.

She was sketching the grove, unaware that someone had finally answered the clock’s call. When she looked up, she smiled like she had been waiting forever.

“I thought you’d never find me,” she said softly.

“How did you know I would?” Riazul asked.

She held up a tiny gear on a chain. “Your grandfather gave me this when I was little. He told me, ‘When the right one fixes the broken time, you’ll meet again where time stands still.’”

They sat under that tree until the stars blinked open. And as the clocks ticked gently in Riazul’s mind, he realized something: some promises are written not in words, but in time.