The Song of Time🔊

Once, in a town blooming with all varieties of colors, named Cerulani, lived an elderly man named Marven. Marven was an old cobbler, reputed in the town for the excellent as well as mystical shoes he crafted. These shoes, seemed normal but once worn, would transport the wearer to a different time.

Marven wasn’t always a cobbler, but after a mystic oracle blessed him with an exceptional crafting acumen along with a pinch of time-winding magic, he gave up his ordinary life to create his magical entity - 'Time Steppers', the time-travelling shoes.

One day, a timid, red-haired boy named Eliot entered his shop. He was infamous in Cerulani as a misfit, a boy who was much ahead of his age, with visions and ideas that befuddled the town people. Instead of being amazed by his intelligence, they misunderstood him, isolated and bullied him.

Eliot gazed at the shelves lined up with the mystical shoes and finally, clutched an antique-looking pair. With a gleaming spark in his eyes, he asked Marven, 'Would this pair take me to the future?'

Marven, startled first, smiled and nodded. Eliot, using up his saved pocket-money, bought the pair and ran home. When he put them on, he found himself in a city of chrome and glittering glass, a hundred years from his time, where technological advances were surreal and electrifying. Elliot's heart bounded with joy; he finally felt at home in this world of innovation and technology.

For months, Eliot would attend his school in Cerulani, bear with the scornful words and then, would find solace in the future. In-between these two worlds, he evolved, learned, and bit by bit, started sharing his futuristic knowledge in his present life. Soon, the mockery changed into respect, and the scorn turned into admiration.

The town flourished due to Eliot’s innovative ideas. Every day, they looked forward to a younger Eliot stepping out in a boyish grin wearing an old rugged pair of shoes, announcing another innovation from the future. His words which were disregarded before, were now engraved in the town's heart. The town was now no longer a conventional town but a nursery of ideas and advancements.

Meanwhile, Marven watched this transformation from the window of his cobbled shop, with pride and a tad bit of worry. He knew well that every tick of the clock has a consequence. He feared Eliot was belonging less to his present world and more to the future.

One fine day, Eliot returned from his time travel, and he was no longer a boy. He had turned into an older, more mature man, with a melancholic look in his eyes, seemingly troubled by something terrible in the future. He came to Marven and returned his shoes, thanking him for the journeys and life lessons while refusing to divulge anything about the incident that perturbed him.

Eliot returned to his mundane life but now bore the look of a visionary, not a dreamy-eyed kid anymore. People often asked him about the future, but he would only smile, turning their awe into disappointment.

One day, the town awoke to a shock. Marven, the solid pillar of the town, the old mystical cobbler, had passed away in his sleep. The entire town grieved for him, but Eliot was unsurprisingly absent during the mourning. Many even speculated that Eliot had seen Marven's death in the future, which was the source of his sadness.

That was partially true, for Eliot had seen not only Marven’s demise but also the town’s collapse in the future, due to excessive expansion and negligent use of resources, a lesson he learned from his time-travelling escapades.

In Marven's honor, Eliot ingeniously utilized every resource of Cerulani, making it a self-sustainable town. The townsfolk loved him even more, for he wasn't only their innovator but their savior too.

With passing years, Elliot's legend grew. He was seen less but felt more. Cerulani flourished, remembering Eliot in their innovations, in their structures, and in the very essence of their life, sustaining through generations, resonating the wisdom of the past and the vision of the future.

Marven's shop remained untouched but not abandoned. It became a testament to the legendary tale of Marven, the shoes, and the red-haired boy who treaded between times, saving his town. The sounds of the cobbler shaping shoes filled the air like an old song, almost like the echoes of a distant past, resonating through time itself.

Thus, time became an extraordinary song composed by an unconventional cobbler and sung by a future-seer, played in the hearts of a small town named Cerulani.

The story was of two simple mortals but the immortals of timelessness and change who through their unwavering friendship, untangled the complexity of existence showering both the dreamer and the dream with the light of relevance and embracing the townsfolk into that warm light. They were the unsung heroes of their time and of all times, taking one step at a time.