Most people don’t even glance at the ragged clock tower anymore. People are always glued to their phones. They never have time for anything that isn’t a screen. The clock tower is now just part of the skyline, old and forgotten. But then came the night the tower chimed at 3:07 a.m.
Three zero seven.
That’s when the sound rattled the streets of Albuquerque.
That’s when the first clue appeared.
That’s when I knew the town was hiding something.
And for some reason, I was the only one who heard it.
RING…RING…RING… I started walking to class. It was just another day at Bernalillo Elementary School, a normal school in a normal city. But sometimes things weren’t so normal.
“Hey! Jace? Jace!”
I spin around to see Evan, one of my best friends, trying to pry me out of another loop in my brain. His strategy: yelling my name in a crowded hallway. Not the best idea.
“We’re gonna be late! Come on!” Evan leaps up and tries to grab my attention by jumping up over the taller people. I start to walk over, thinking about my schedule.
Suddenly, I trip. As I fall onto the floor, the bell rings for the final time. I watch as the huge crowds funnel into different classrooms. Evan runs over.
“You okay?”
I can’t bring myself to respond, my eyes captured on a tiny object glinting in the school lighting. I slowly get up, my eyes still locked on the mysterious article. It was silver, worn down gray to reveal a shiny metal. Funny how something so shiny and bright could lay on the floor, unnoticed by hundreds of people, even when it’s that beautiful.
“What’s that?” Evan asked, confused and anxious that he might be late for class.
“Nothing.” I placed the shiny object in my pocket as we stalked over to math class.
After the long school day, it was finally time to go home. The late sun shimmered on the pavement, blinding me. Nobody else even looked at the yellowed sidewalk, though. The cracks filled with sunshine and beauty, but all I heard were the buzzes of phones. I watched as my friend, Carlos, skateboarded over to the school bus. Looking up from his phone, the green sign for Barelas Street passed his head. As soon as he waved, the small wheels on his skateboard squeaked to a stop, throwing him over. I couldn’t help but snicker. He was clumsy, but one of the popular kids. A Deadly duo.
I slung my backpack off of my shoulder and closed the door. The house was empty, as usual. I headed upstairs, eager to investigate the mysterious object. There it was, out of my pocket. This shiny silver ring-looking thing in front of me. Nothing really looked outlandish to me. Just an ordinary gray ring. Maybe a little too ordinary. It looked handmade, like something from one of the old man’s weird inventions people joked about. Like the one Carlos was talking about. Mr. Halden. That was his name. I’ve heard many things about that guy. They said he was crazy. Always talking about his “inventions.” People distanced themselves from him. I always thought that it was kinda sad.
I set it down on the table. It was already 10 o’clock. Huh. Very peculiar. I lay down on my bed, thinking. Why was that ring there? And why did I, just, need it? Whatever. Friday was tomorrow. Hangout night with Evan and Carlos. I turn to my side, trying to sleep. What feels like a century later, I look across my room to see my clock flashing 3:06 at me. I bury my face in the pillow, desperate for sleep. All of a sudden, I heard a piercing sound. The old clock tower in the square. It was ringing. The chime rattled my chest, too loud for a tower nobody cared for anymore. I quickly got up out of bed, checking the time again. 3:07 a.m. I looked out of my window. Nobody’s lights were on. Was I the only one who heard it? If so, why?
Maybe everyone else was too asleep to notice—even if their eyes weren’t closed.
It was the next morning, and my parents had already left for work. I sat up, thinking. I hadn’t slept last night. I just felt like there was something keeping me awake. A pulsing noise, like the beat of a heart. A gleaming green glow. Three numbers on a small object. A normal object. With a rush of realization, I ran over to my desk. Finding the small silver ring. I cupped it in my hands, examining the sides. A greenish hue throbbed into my palm. Three numbers. All too familiar. Looking back at me was a time: 3:07 a.m. The exact time I had woken up to the ringing sound of the old clock tower. That beige clock tower nobody looked at. The rusted black metal edging around the face. It felt like I was the only one who remembered that detail. The clock tower that we used to visit. The one I hadn’t glanced at since forever.
After school, I decided to tell my buddies about it. It was hangout night at Carlos’s house, so I brought our snacks and drinks. I glanced at the ring, wondering if I should bring it. Well, Jace, this is the only time you’ll see Carlos and Evan together in the next month. Better do it now. I walked downstairs towards the door, grabbing the food on the way out. Carlos’s house was down the block. I hopped on my skateboard and rode down to his mansion. The babbling of the creek filled my ears as I skated over to the “Skateboard Stop.” And yes, it did say that on the concrete. I parked my skateboard beside Evan’s, who had already arrived. I walked inside, greeted by the sounds of video game controllers, the smell of tamales and the crunch of chips being eaten. The game paused.
“Hey Jace! Come on over.”
I walk on over to the couch, setting down my bag at the front door. Carlos is in the kitchen, grabbing some more snacks. Evan sits on the couch, waiting for me to sit down.
“Guess what? Carlos got a new game! We can all play together now.”
“Cool,” I say, but I know he can tell that something’s on my mind. He sets down the game controller.
“What’s bugging you, Jace?” he asks.
“Wait ‘till Carlos comes back, then I’ll tell you guys.”
Later, when Carlos comes back, I go grab my bag from the entrance. Carlos scarfs down a handful of popcorn before wiping his hands.
“So? What is it you’re gonna tell us?” Evan inquires. I sit down on the couch beside my friends.
“Yesterday, on my way to class, I tripped in the hallway. And I found this.” I dug through my backpack and pulled out the ring.
We all just sat there in silence for a moment. I thought they were trying to process everything. I thought wrong.
“So you have a ring. So, um, what’s so special about it?” Carlos asked. I didn’t respond, checking out the ring and slipping it on and off of my fingers.
“Man, that looks like one of those gadgets that old Mr. Halden used to build,” Carlos said.
“You mean that crazy old guy? From the 1800s?” Evan asked as I held up the ring, trying to find the side with the glowing green numbers on it. But I had some trouble. They seemed to have disappeared.
“Yeah,” Carlos said. “He was the one who built the clock tower. It used to be nice, but it’s chipped and it lost its perfectness, I dunno.”
“Let me see it, Jace,” Carlos said, snatching it away before I could respond. I don’t know why, but that comment Carlos made about the tower losing its “perfectness” stung a little. People don’t recognize elegance anymore, I guess. As soon as Carlos touched the weathered metal of the ring, the chandelier above us flickered.
Just once.
Carlos froze. “Um, did I break my house?”
Evan snorted. “Dude, you can’t break a mansion.”
“Pretty sure you can,” Carlos muttered, staring at the ring like it might explode. For the first time in a while, he looked genuinely scared.
Suddenly, the room… hiccupped.
That’s the only way to describe it.
One moment, the giant popcorn bowl on Carlos’s marble coffee table was full. The next, it was empty, crumbs everywhere, Carlos licking the salt off of his fingers. He blinked.
“Wait. Did I eat all of that?”
Evan stared at him. “You didn’t even move.”
We all shrugged it off, but the ring in Carlos’s hand pulsed—just once—like a tiny heartbeat.
We all went quiet.
Carlos decided to go make some more popcorn for all of us. And for his “Testing.”
“What about I microwave it?” Carlos asks, examining the ring before accidentally dropping it on the carpet.
“That would probably make it explode. Remember the fork incident?” Evan says.
“But this thing has special magic whatevers in it and I bet it would react differently.” So Carlos decided to put it in the microwave. It didn’t explode, but it sure made the ring bounce everywhere.
“Well, it’s getting late. I’m gonna head home,” I say, grabbing my things and saying bye as I open up the door to leave. I fling my backpack over my shoulder and hop on my skateboard, starting to kick to get momentum. Abruptly, the sky changed from orange to blue in seconds, then back to orange. The sudden difference made my steady feet lose their grip on the skateboard, making me fall over. It was honestly scary. I sat there for a moment, then started packing up my things. While searching, I discovered the ring hidden among the blades of grass in Carlos’s yard, glowing. Four green numbers flashed on it: 11:30.
As I got settled into my bed, the ring caught my eye again. It was just so weird how it predicted stuff and could change things related to time.
Suddenly, I heard the clock tower ring its toll. The clock tower I hadn’t heard since yesterday. And the clock tower nobody had ever in this lifetime heard before. My eyes darted to my clock. 11:29. A minute before the ring’s time. I jumped out of my bed and turned the light on. 11:30. Out of nowhere, the light turned off. I flipped the switch. Nothing. I guess it was a blackout. A blackout right when the ring predicted.
The next day, I decided to ask my buddies if they wanted to go on a short trip to the clock tower to explore. They showed up fifteen minutes later.
“Hey, Jace. Do you wanna leave now or…?” Carlos asked, rubbing his dirty shoes on the purple doormat. Evan walks in behind him, wearing a baseball cap and carrying popcorn.
“Sure.” I walked outside, skateboarding to the clock tower with my friends. I kicked off the curb, wheels humming under me as we headed toward the square. Carlos jogged to keep up, complaining about the heat. Evan’s black messy hair blew in the wind as he munched popcorn like this was a movie he’d already seen.
“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Carlos asked, dodging a crack in the sidewalk, sweating from the beating sun.
“I dunno,” I said. “Just felt like checking it out.”
We pass Calle De Oro. It was called that because of how the street always soaked up the sun. Carter didn’t like the warmth.
The clock tower peeked over the rooftops as we turned the corner—tall, gray, lost. Up close, it looked even older than I remembered, like it had been waiting for someone to notice it. We climbed the small hill behind it, the one that overlooked the whole town. Carlos flopped onto the grass dramatically, his gray shirt rippling in the wind.
“Dude, I’m dying. Why is this hill so steep?”
“It’s not,” Evan said, snickering and tossing popcorn at him. “You’re just weak.”
“I guess we never realized it was steep,” I said, not knowing why. I stepped closer to the tower’s base. The bricks were warm from the sun, rough under my fingers. It was beautiful, but I felt that I was the only one who thought that. Something about it felt… familiar. Like I’d been here before, even though I hadn’t.
“The tower rang last night,” I said without thinking. “Loud. Like really loud.”
Evan stopped mid-chew. “The clock tower? No way. I didn’t hear anything.”
“Same,” Carlos said, getting back up, his short brown hair tangled up with dried blades of grass. “My mom would have posted on 12 different social media accounts if that old thing rang.”
I frowned. “Well I heard it.”
They shrugged, unconvinced.
I looked back up at the tower, old and mysterious. “Huh. Look at the tower. The bricks curve at the edge a bit, and the metal on the clockface? It’s actually kind of cool.”
Evan followed my gaze. “I never noticed that before.”
“And the trees,” I continued. “They look brighter from up on this hill.”
Carlos squinted “Woah. They kinda do.”
A breeze moved through the nearby forest, rattling the branches and blinding us. It’s as if someone turned up the world’s brightness. Or our eyes just adjusted to the glories of the sun.
Then …
RING.
All three of us froze.
The sound rolled through the clearing—deep, magical, impossible to ignore.
“You guys heard that this time, right?”
“Yup,” they said in unison.
Carlos, Evan and I climbed up the many flights of stairs to the clock tower’s head.
“Man, this tower is ancient,” Carlos put in, examining the old stone desks in the control center. “Hey. This may have been Mr. Halden’s! That would be cool,” Carlos mentions, shuffling through old hammers and construction papers.
Evan looked up from the cabinet he was searching, his long rectangular glasses almost flying off.
We continue to search around the tower–feeling a bit just a strange pulling, like it was meant to be.
“What’s this?” I pull out a strange wooden box, metal screws holding it together. Carlos and Evan walk over, setting down whatever they were looking at. I was filled with joy that they were looking at things—felt like they were the only ones that did; now at least.
“Looks like some wooden chest or box, from like the 1800s,” Evan thought out loud, examining the box more closely.
I felt Carlos’s hand go over next to mine, opening the chest. Inside was… a piece of paper.
We all looked at each other for a second. My curiosity took over. I opened up the folded yellow paper, almost feeling the years this piece had spent here.
“What’s it say?” Carlos asked, building the anticipation we all had. The handwriting was shaky but determined.
“FOR THE NEXT ONE WHO HEARS THE CHIME.”
“DO NOT BE AFRAID.”
“THE WORLD IS LOUDER THAN PEOPLE REMEMBER.”
Carlos frowned. “Who wrote this?”
I turned the paper over. A second note was scribbled on the back—newer, steadier… familiar.
“Keep listening.”
“You’ll Understand someday.”
The ring vibrated on my finger. I looked down at it. Instead of numbers, it was flashing one word: NOW. A strange pressure built up behind my eyes. The world around me started to blur—not like fainting, but like the air itself was shifting.
Then everything snapped into place.
My eyes floated to a picture. It was a blurred image of something, so I couldn’t see much but a small figure somewhere gray. The vision locked into place, finally allowing me to see the full picture. Stacked papers in a gray office surrounded the figure. This time, I saw their face. It was older. Worn. Familiar. It was… me.
There were no friends. No color. No laughter. No noticing anything but paperwork. No… happiness. Just work. Just noise. Just nothing.
Suddenly, the vision cracked like glass. A new image appeared. It was me again, but different. Happier. I had my friends around me. I had laughter, I had love and I noticed the small things that brought me joy. This. This was the future I wanted. I don’t know how I knew it was the future. I just had a feeling. The pressure on my eyes was relieved. I stumbled forward, caught by Evan and Carlos.
“Dude, you okay?” Evan asked.
“Yeah,” I said, my heart still racing. “I-I think so.”
I stared at the note for another second. The clock tower, the ring, the note, it was all connected. The old man, Mr. Halden, lived here. Maybe he wrote this note. Maybe Carlos was right, the ring being one of his crazy “time–bending” inventions. But maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.
After confirming I was okay, Carlos let something in the corner of his eye catch his attention.
“Woah, guys. It’s beautiful.” He pointed towards the small creek, surrounded by trees as birds sung overhead.
“How—how did we not notice any of this?” Evan asked. I didn’t answer. I slipped the old man’s note back into the chest and placed it under the table. Some things were meant for the next person who listened.
We walked back down the hill together, the clock tower standing silently behind us.
The world felt different now.
Brighter.
Not because anything had changed—because we finally noticed the beauty.
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