Little Miss Hobbs, Pt. VII: Applause for the Watchmaker

The disdain of disappointment left a bitter taste in her mouth, so she bypassed several shops that simply didn’t appear to have the capacity for the sort of magic she desired. It seemed increasingly more uncomfortable and warm outside, even though the sun showed signs of setting, and so her shuffling feet grew more muffled, as did her awareness of the goings-on around her.

She resolved to try her luck at one final shop, but as she entered, she noticed it was more abandoned than an open shop ought to be, so she called to the recesses, “Hello? Are you still open?” She could hear a slightly labored breathing as someone rustled in the obscured far reaches of the store.

Much like her living space, the halls weren’t long or deep, and the individual rooms weren’t like the open spaces of meadows (as she often likened warehouse-style stores), but they were adequate and the ceiling was tall enough for contentment (which doesn’t normally mean much for people of her stature, but she liked a little extra headroom for her deep thinking). “Yes, yes, please come in!” declared the short, tan man, though he still stood a fair bit taller than her. “What time do you close?” she questioned sheepishly. “Four o’clock,” he said curtly. She examined her wristwatch (which was all but silent, mind you), and it read six-thirty, and not a minute earlier. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to intrude,” she said as she began backing out of the creaky front door. “Nonsense, I serve people outside of regular hours all of the time!” he said enthusiastically, even with a somewhat prideful air, “How may I help you, Little Miss?”

She explained her complex conundrum that she wished to remedy with a single, solitary source of ticking and tapping. She began her tale with gusto, but as she recounted her train of thought, she realized how ridiculous it must have seemed, and by the end, was barely uttering more than a muttered mumble of her tale and proposed solution. After she concluded and took a shaky, shameful breath, he let a second more of silence, mayhaps to process or consider her words further, or mayhaps out of the tale’s ludicrosity, Little Miss Hobbs hypothesized.

“Brilliant, you are!” he finally exclaimed, making her jump a bit, and resurrecting the smile on her face, but certainly not a smirk of pride, as Little Miss Hobbs was rarely prideful. “Oh man, you think so?” she questioned, “Thank you so much for saying so.” “Indeed! You seek a solimentary thing to replicate a solimentary thing, even if the original solimentary thing to be mimicked manifests itself in a multitudinous way. I think I have just the thing…”