The Clockmaker of Sichuan

It appeared at the bottom of page twelve in the April, 2008 edition of South Chengdu People's Daily. 

It was never published. A much larger story overshadowed it, celebrating the construction of a new stadium for the upcoming Olympics that summer.

The column was uncredited. No byline. Just a short title—

“The Clockmaker of Sichuan”

This story begins in the capital city of an exhausted empire. Its tired, hungry populous eager for change. 

The year was 1978.

The empire, which for decades had suffered terribly as an isolated hermit kingdom, suddenly found itself under the leadership of a new emperor. He was barely 160 centimeters tall, a chain smoker, had a potbelly… but beneath that, the new emperor had dreams far greater than his small stature would suggest.

He waved to the crowd from atop his forbidden palace, ideas materializing in his head. Leaning towards his adviser, he whispered: 

“Those who cannot swim will be drowned by the tide of reform.”

And with that, the hermit kingdom released its hungry hermits back into the wild tide.

Three years passed. 

Somewhere far beyond the capital, beyond the port cities, and fishing hubs… in the rural belly of the empire itself—a young man was being laid off from his state-subsidized position at a factory which no longer served a purpose. Liberation had finally come.

The Factory Director, arms behind his back, only nodded as his former workers marched out the gates with boxes in hand.

“Comrades,” he said, “you are now entrepreneurs.”

The young man returned to his hutong home, his wife and daughter greeting him at the door. But he was worried. For the first time in his life, he wondered: 

“What is my purpose?”

He observed his neighbors. 

A former state propagandist was painting a wall nearby. But instead of painting portraits of emperors, now he painted over them. Fresh white paint buried the dead emperor's balding forehead and mole-spotted chin underneath. Then a new image appeared—two boys holding bottles of a drink he couldn't recognize yet. The revolutionary slogan was replaced with another—'drink this.' 

He turned to one more. 

A former machine lathe operator was cooking noodles outside his home. It smelled so good, he thought. Others seemed to think the same. They came forth with curiosity—hesitant at first—as if the ideas of that dead emperor were still ripe within their minds. Eventually, the curious onlookers transformed into customers, and the machine lathe operator transformed into a small shop owner. The customers handed the shop owner little gold medallions; keys to a forbidden realm. In return, the shop owner handed each of them a bowl of steaming Dandan Mien noodles. The first exchange.

“Clocks,” he thought. “I choose clocks.”

And so the man became a clockmaker. 

In no time at all, the bottom floor of his hutong home had been transformed into a clock-fixing workshop. Business started slow, but in time, one customer a day became three... then six... then eight...

From all over the village and beyond, people brought in their broken clocks, and walked out smiling, with working ones. 

A few more years passed. 

The once struggling family who'd barely had enough to eat just a few short years ago, now afforded new luxuries—foreign sneakers, foreign candy, music cassettes, Japanese Walkmans, black-and-white TV set, suits and ties to replace the blue-gray uniforms of past. Little white receipts replaced the little red book of old. 

“Thank you,” a customer exclaimed, giving him an appreciative nod. “You’re a lifesaver!”

The clockmaker nodded in return with a smile. This is my purpose, he thought. 

As the day came to an end, the man tidied up his workshop and counted his earnings. But before he could close, a young girl dressed in a breezy white skirt walked up to him. A little red watch lay in her little soft palms.

“Can you fix it?” she asked, quietly.

The clockmaker gently took it from the girl, examining. The glass was scratched, chrome casing pitted, and the strap had been replaced with a piece of fraying twine. The watch's arms ticked in place, unmoving. 

“Come back tomorrow,” he said to the girl. “I'll have it fixed for you.”

The young girl skipped away down the narrow hutong passage and out of sight. The clockmaker resigned from his duties, placed the watch atop his dresser, and went to bed.

It'd been a day like any other. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that should’ve made him wake up that way. But unexplainable things do happen sometimes. When the magpies woke the clockmaker awake the next morning, he realized: he no longer knew anything about clocks. 

Everything he'd known about fixing clocks had seemingly vanished in his sleep. He went to the village doctors, but they told him there was nothing they could do. They told him to visit the larger hospitals; the more educated doctors in the provincial capital. But the clockmaker couldn’t afford to see those doctors, nor could he afford the trip to get there. Liberation came with its own costs.

Now unable to fix clocks, business began to dwindle. Each day, fewer and fewer customers came in and out of the door of his workshop. The once flourishing shop with a bright future ahead of it, was extinguished overnight. Younger, faster clockmakers filled the gap.

And with no money, the family began to struggle once more. They sold their sneakers, their TV set, their ties. The same music cassettes that'd brought them so much joy before, now only served as a reminder of what they were losing.

The clockmaker’s wife, increasingly frustrated by the day, blamed him for everything. She blamed him for all their troubles. For the business he ruined. For the life they could have had, but now would never have. Night after night, they fought. 

Then one night, the wife and the daughter walked out the door. They never returned.

Now, sitting alone on the edge of his bed, his sight caught hold of something on top of the dresser—the little red watch. The arm ticked in its place, just as it had before. The young girl hadn't come back to retrieve it.

He asked all over the village for the girl, but no one had a clue as to where she'd gone. Every morning he’d look at it—the broken glass; the stationary arms… He’d wonder why the girl never came back for it. Where was she now? Was she still looking for it? He’d never know.

One afternoon, he slipped the watch into his pocket, and stood up from the edge of his bed. The door of his shop closed for the last time. The clockmaker was a clockmaker no more. 

Many years passed.

The now old man was a street sweeper. He found himself in the capital city of a new empire. Glass and steel towers, whose penthouses rose far above the smog, loomed over him as he swept up and down the busy sidewalks. The sound of construction had become this city's song, as nearby villages were raised to the ground to make way for the future. A billboard read—

(One World, One Dream
2008 Beijing Olympics)

Eight-laned streets packed with honking cars, jammed at every intersection. Each one a customer, too eager get to their next shop. Crowds squeezed past each other, their eyes stuck on the new inventions in their hands. It was all beyond what the old man could understand now. 

From within the crowd, a figure caught his eye. He recognized her. The shy young girl who'd left her watch at his workshop that fateful evening, was now a beautiful young woman.

The old man dropped his broom and approached her. She was dressed in dark office wear. A sleek, digital watch wrapped her wrist.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little red watch, placing it gently in her palms. The ticking had long stopped. Batteries long dead. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t fix it.”

The woman nodded in thanks, dropped it into her purse, then stepped back into the crowd. 

And at that moment, just as she disappeared from his sight, the old man realized something.

For the woman, the broken watch was merely a moment among moments. A minor inconvenience. No more or less than a missed train, or a child's shirt that'd been outgrown. A second of interruption in a life that never stopped moving.

But for him?

The unmoving arms of the watch merely reflected his own life. The very day the girl didn't return was the same day she'd gotten a new one someplace else. For years, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His mind stayed trapped, just like the little red watch, frozen in time. He could never let go. Meanwhile, the world had moved on without him.

The old man chuckled to himself before resuming his duties. 

—End of Act 1—