Zeit, bitte bleib stehen, bleib stehen

In a town so inconspicuous that it eluded every map, there dwelt a young inventor by the name of Elian Tinkerfield. Elian was captivated by the cogs of time, by seconds piling into minutes, and minutes constructing hours. His life was a tribute to clocks and chronometers, and at the tender age of twenty, he commenced his magnum opus: a time machine.

Day and night Elian toiled, spurred on by a melody once heard from an ancient music box, which whispered in refrain: "bitte bleib stehen, bleib stehen, Zeit." His contraption was a fantastical assembly of pendulums and steam, of copper pipes and aged pocket watches gleaned from the stalls of flea markets. And then, one day, as the clock struck twelve, he activated the device and unfurled a shimmering time portal.

Stepping through, Elian emerged in a realm where time coursed backward. Children gambolled in retrograde innocence, the aged reverted to youth, and Elian himself became... 101 years of age. He had been rendered an old man, yet with the intellect of a youth.

He ambled through a world at once familiar and bizarre. Rivers flowed uphill, trees defoliated only to burst into full bloom. Elian perceived that all once beautiful was unwinding in reverse. He witnessed lovers devolving from passionate embraces to shy glances and thought, "Ah, if it could but last forever."

Yet Elian knew he could not linger in this antithetical cosmos. He yearned to preserve the beauty of the moment where youth was not adversity, and the end did not loom. Thus, he returned to the machine and reverted the flow of time.

He arrived back in his own era, not as the youth he once was, but as a centenarian, ensnared in time's relentless current.

The machine was never again employed. He now understood the words of the song that had once inspired him: "bitte bleib stehen, bleib stehen, Zeit." But time would not heed such pleas. It is a future that cannot be conjured.

In his final days, Elian found solace in life's minutiae—the smile of a child, the warmth of the sun, the aroma of freshly baked bread. He had lived, had loved, and now it was time to depart, as the song went, "when it is most wondrous."

When Elian at last closed his eyes forever, the world paused for an infinitesimal moment — in the perfect moment.

Inspired by the song "Zeit" by Rammstein

Taken on: November 17, 2023

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Zeit

bitte bleib stehen

Rammstein

midjourney

H.G.Wells

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