In a world where time was bought and sold like grain, there lived an old man named Elias. He was the only clockmaker who didn't fix clocks to tell the time; he fixed them to store memories.
In his tiny shop, Elias had thousands of jars. Inside each jar was a small, glowing gear. When someone had a moment they never wanted to forget—like a child's first laugh or the smell of rain after a long summer—they would bring it to Elias. He would "wind" that feeling into a golden gear and place it inside a glass clock.
One day, a young girl named Lyra walked in. She didn't bring a happy memory. Instead, she handed him a rusted, broken spring.
"Can you turn this into a clock?" she asked. "It's the feeling of losing my way in the woods."
Elias was shocked. "Why would you want to keep a memory of being lost and afraid?"
Lyra smiled sadly and said, "Because if I don't remember being lost, I will never truly appreciate what it feels like to be found."
Elias realized that for years, he had only been saving the "sunshine" and ignoring the "shadows." He spent the whole night building a special clock for Lyra. When it ticked, it didn't sound like tick-tock. It sounded like a heartbeat.
From that day on, the people of the valley learned that every moment—even the difficult ones—is a piece of the machinery that makes us who we are.