Chrysanthemum

The box opened itself, spilling its contents of gears and springs onto the kitchen table. She sighed at the mess. He never made things easy. She fished an instruction booklet from the mess. The cover simply read, “To my Isa.” She could almost hear the slight lisp in the words, too faint for anyone but her to notice.

He made the instructions as clear an concise as he could, but she could only barely follow them. He’d slipped jokes between the technical jargon to keep her awake. Small asides that were only meant for her. Little reminders of every smile he’d ever given her.

There were hints of him in the manufacture, tiny flaws more personal than a signature. A big, fat gear had a scratch along its face where his knife had slipped. A wound belt sported a crease from his unsteady hand. A pendulum’s weight still bore edges from when he’d attempted to hammer it into shape. Touching them was like brushing fingertips once more.

She worked long into the night, piecing together this intimate puzzle. The tools were unfamiliar in her grip. The joints either lacked oil or dripped with it. Her left eye began to twitch, the same way his had always done. She’d never realized that it came from working by candlelight.

Piece by piece, the mechanism revealed itself. When the last screw was cranked tight and the ticking began, a bronze flower sprouted with jerks and creaks. For a moment he was there, whispering to her, reminding her of everything she would never have again.

The instructions ended with a note:

“It blooms twice per day. Once for when I miss you. Once for when I know I’ll see you again. Yours until the clock runs out, Maxwell.”