Tiny loved to spend Saturday afternoons drifting through the shops of Upper Treetops. One favourite was Justin Thyme’s Clock Shop, with its colossal grandfather clock and the mysterious hourglass in the window.
As she wandered the aisles, she came upon an old wristwatch, and wiped off the dust to reveal its name: Casio. There were no numbers and no dial, just a dull, black screen with a rusty button on the side. Tiny pressed it, nothing. She tried again, and a flat, metallic tune spat out. It sounded like the teeniest robot was tinkering on the world’s smallest piano, hidden inside an invisible boombox.
Although the melody was familiar, it hovered just out of reach, and so Tiny reached into her mind and pulled out the box of memories. The first drawer labeled ‘Holiday Fun!’ was hopeless, as was the second, ‘Family Snapshots’. But as she pulled on the final drawer, ‘Most Precious Moments’, the words rushed from the darkness to reunite with the notes of the song, ‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. . .’
Tiny was transported to the living room of her childhood; her small feet planted on Papa’s warm slippers, his large hands folded gently over hers. They danced around the room, circling and gliding, swaying and giggling as the transistor radio sang, ‘Oh I believe in Yesterday . . .’
His deep carefree laughter roared like a fire in her heart, and from the kitchen, Her sweet crooked humming floated through the door, and spun around them in a loving cocoon.
Tiny’s joy was endless. The doorbell jangled. The spell was broken. She ached for one last dance, but the robot had stopped playing and the memory had slipped back into the box, closing the drawer behind it. Tiny looked at the watch; she no longer saw a half-broken timepiece, but a magical machine to travel back in time. Clasping it around her wrist, she headed for the cash register, eager for home.