In the dusty attic of the old Baker house, where the floorboards creaked like hungry stomachs and the smell of cinnamon clung to the shadows, there lived a hamster who collected time .
His name was Pip , and he was plump and golden-furred, with eyes like polished obsidian. The children thought he was a normal pet—until they noticed the way the grandfather clock downstairs stuttered when Pip ran on his wheel at night, or how birthday candles refused to burn down in his presence.
Pip’s cage was filled not with wood shavings, but with stolen moments :
— A silver pocket watch that ticked backwards
— A dried rose that never crumbled
— A single snowflake pressed between two coins, still frozen after years in the attic heat
Mrs. Baker, the widow who owned the house, pretended not to see the way Pip’s shadow sometimes stretched too long across the floorboards, or how her tea went cold the second he twitched his whiskers in her direction. She’d grown accustomed to the trade—a few lost minutes here and there in exchange for the way her arthritis pain lessened when Pip curled in her palm.
But one winter evening, her grandson Leo snuck upstairs with a flashlight. He found Pip sitting atop a pyramid of stolen items: a baby tooth, a wedding ring, and—most strangely—a photograph of Mrs. Baker as a young girl, except in the picture, she was fading .
"You’re eating her memories!" Leo accused.
Pip’s beady eyes gleamed. He stuffed a handful of sunflower seeds into his cheeks—except they weren’t seeds at all, but tiny hourglasses, their sands swirling upward instead of down.
The next morning, Mrs. Baker woke feeling lighter than she had in years. Her hands didn’t ache. The smell of her late husband’s pipe tobacco lingered in the air. And when she looked in the mirror, her reflection winked at her with youthful eyes.
Upstairs, Pip’s cage sat empty, the wheel still spinning.
Now if you pass the Baker house at exactly midnight, you might hear a faint squeak-squeak-squeak coming from the walls. And if you’re very quiet, you’ll notice your watch has stopped—
—but your heart beats stronger, as if you’ve borrowed time from somewhere else.
