Once upon a time, there was a scientist. He was a very bright scientist, and a good-natured one too, for his new project was to make sure that all of the people in the world found their soulmate. As he grew older and older, he realized how many people remain unhappy in their allotted days, as they have no one to spend them with. He, himself, once had a soulmate, a beautiful brunette with blue eyes as big as saucepans, but she had died before her clock ran out, in a series of unfortunate events that had occurred to the scientist.

So the old scientist worked and worked, experimented and experimented, until he finally made a clock. A counting clock. But rather than counting up like a stopwatch or counting the twenty-four hours of a day like a normal clock, it counted down. You would prick your finger on the clock, and once it had your blood it would start counting down the years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds until you meet your true love.

It was the most innovative invention yet. At last all of those poor, lonely people could finally be reassured that they would soon be lonely no more. The clocks went viral, and the scientist quickly converted them into bracelets. The bracelets were distributed to everyone in the world, and the scientist made a machine for every hospital, so that the doctors had a new bracelet for each baby born.

And, I suppose, this is where our story begins.

One day, a hot summer day where the unrelenting sun had no rest behind clouds, a baby boy was born, named Joseph. He was given a bracelet like every other child, except his simply read “22 years” from the moment it started.

By the time Joseph was old enough to realize the importance of the clock, he was ecstatic to find out that his soul mate would come to him on his twenty-second birthday. So many questions ran through his head. Will they be nice? Will they have dark hair or light hair? What color eyes will they have? Will they be from the same country? Will they be a boy or a girl? Oh, he was so giddy he didn’t even care who they were. As long as they were his.

On Joseph’s twenty-second birthday, five minutes before he met his soul mate, he was meandering through town, dancing and skipping like a school boy about to talk to his crush.

He stopped to admire some flowers from a vendor, and bought one red rose for his love-to-be.

Three minutes until he met his soul mate.

Joseph tripped over his own feet, accidently untying his shoelaces. He stopped on the side of the walkway and fixed his shoes so that the laces wouldn’t come undone.

One minute.

He looked across the street, heart racing as his eyes met another’s, a pair of gorgeous blue eyes with a hint of green in them. The eyes belonged to another boy, a very beautiful boy who seemed to fix everything in Joseph’s life at once.
Thirty seconds.
The beautiful man was still on the opposite side of the street, nearly two blocks
away. He started walking, almost running towards Joseph.

Still in shock, it took Joe a moment before he started running too, when his clock hit ten seconds.

Ten. Nine.

Joseph’s heart was racing. He couldn’t wait to meet this beautiful boy.

The man ran off the sidewalk, gracefully walking across the paved street towards Joe.

Eight. Seven.

Joseph stopped on the edge of the sidewalk, smiling and waiting to hand his beautiful lover the rose.

But the boy was stopped mid-step.

Each lover was so deafened by the sound of their nervous hearts beating, they couldn’t hear the oncoming oil truck. The massive automobile struck the boy violently. Regretting everything immediately, the trucker stopped as fast as he could, but the damage was already done.

Joseph ran out into the street towards his love, not bothering to check if there were any other cars.

Most people on the sidewalk who had witnessed the accident had called the authorities. But not one official could tear Joseph away from his beautiful boy’s lifeless body.

He finally checked his watch, desperate for comfort. Maybe Joseph would have a second chance at love.

But alas, the beautiful boy’s watch was ceased, stopped at five seconds with Joseph’s.

If only he could have lived for five seconds more. Maybe then Joseph could have continued, rather than stuck in time with his broken counting watch.