Uncle Shom Part 1 May 2026

“Well, boy,” he said, kneeling to my eye level. “Do you believe in things that cannot be explained?”

Part 1 of Uncle Shom is not a story with a clean ending. It is a beginning—the opening of a door that can never be fully closed. In Part 2, we will explore the letters he left behind in the attic crawlspace, the true origin of the watchmen, and the reason why Uncle Shom believed that I, and only I, could finish what he started.

But the pocket watch remained. I picked it up. The hands were still moving—forward this time. And on the inside of the lid, where there had once been an engraving of a compass rose, there was now a new inscription: “Gone to fix the past. Be back before you grow up. — Shom” That was thirty-seven years ago. I’m forty-seven now. Uncle Shom never returned. My father claimed the whole thing was a stress-induced hallucination. My mother refused to discuss the “spare room.” But the pocket watch is in my desk drawer as I write this. And every now and then, usually at 2:47 AM, I hear a faint knocking. Uncle Shom Part 1

Uncle Shom stood before it, fully dressed, the silver-handled umbrella in one hand and my pocket watch in the other. He didn’t look surprised. He looked tired .

“What happened?” I breathed.

The knocker struck the door three times on its own—a slow, deliberate rhythm. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Who?” I asked, my voice a thin wire. “Well, boy,” he said, kneeling to my eye level

“Take care of this,” he whispered. “It’s the only thing keeping the late train on time.” That pocket watch became my obsession. Over the next week, Uncle Shom moved into our spare room—the one with the locked closet my mother never used. He kept strange hours. Awake at 3:00 AM, brewing black tea with a single sprig of rosemary. Asleep by noon, only to rise at sunset.