Tis is the night before Christmas, and the city is wrapped in a silence covered with snow. Streetlights glow warmly, and in one window on the third floor a light is still on.
An old watchmaker sits there, once again forgetting that he promised himself to rest. On the table lie watches — each different, each holding someone else’s time inside. When one of them suddenly falls silent, the man freezes. Instead of ticking, he hears a soft, childlike laugh.
Outside the window the snow begins to fall more heavily, and the world slows for a brief moment, as if someone has allowed it to breathe. The watchmaker smiles, because he understands that this night is not about fixing time.
He turns off the lamp and leaves, behind him a silence that smells of a new beginning.
