ART – AI GENERATED IMAGE – CONCEPT ART – FOWC/RDP/3TC

My submission for Hugh’s Views & News blog, Wordless Wednesday post.

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The Clocksmith’s Dominion

Inside the curved brass of the pocket watch, time did not tick—it breathed. With every rise and fall of its mechanical lungs, reality flexed. Past and present danced together in the glow of burnished gears.

Inspector Tallow leaned in, monocle gleaming, his breath caught at the threshold of something ancient. Through the glass, nestled in a city of golden cogs and miniature spires, a bearded man knelt in reverence over a humming engine. Steam curled upward like incense, and the air shimmered—not with heat, but memory.

“I wasn’t allowed to speak of this place,” said the watchmaker, his voice threading through the ether, though his lips barely moved. His hair, coiled and thick, caught glints of starlight from nowhere. “But you asked the right question, Inspector. You asked why time is astoundingly merciful to some… and merciless to others.”

Tallow blinked. “You’re saying… time is shaped?”

“Forged,” the watchmaker whispered aloud, though the word echoed as if spoken from a temple buried in mist. “Shaped like clay, whispered into the grooves of a gear. Not watched—but woven.”

The inspector’s hand hovered above the device, fingers trembling as if crossing into prayer. “And who decides its form?”

The clocksmith turned. His eyes shimmered like twin moons reflected in oil. “I do. But only because no one else remembered how.”

Time held its breath. A single gear turned with celestial finality.

And Inspector Tallow vanished—like a name exhaled from the lips of a dream.