The Hollow Pegasus

I didn’t think much of the old clock when I first saw it, dangling from a nail in the hallway of my new apartment. It was a grotesque thing—a brass pegasus, wings spread, with a knight on its back, clutching a spear. Every hour, a tiny trapdoor opened beneath the horse’s belly, and a miniature catapult would hurl a puff of dust across the floor. My roommate, Dale, inherited it from his father, who’d brought it back from some European flea market. He said it was ‘priceless,’ but to me, it was just ugly.

Dale was a quiet guy, a failed artist who now worked as a night guard at a museum. He rarely talked about his past, but one evening, after a few beers, he told me about the incident. He’d been lying in bed with his ex-wife, Maria, when they heard a sharp crack. The knight—the whole figurine—had been ripped from its perch and flung across the room, hitting the wall with a thud. He showed me the dent in the plaster, still visible. I laughed it off, said it was just a faulty spring. He didn’t find it funny. He said, ‘It wasn’t the spring. It was something else.’

A few months later, Dale got a divorce, and I moved in to help with the rent. The apartment was a mess—boxes everywhere, dust, and that clock still ticking in the hallway. We started cleaning, but the clock always seemed to be in the way. I suggested throwing it out, but Dale got defensive. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it stays.’ So we left it.

One night, I was alone. Dale was working the night shift. I was watching TV when I heard a clatter from the hallway. I went to check. The knight had fallen off the pegasus and was lying on the floor, its spear snapped. I picked it up, examined it. The base was clean—no break, no wear. It was as if it had been pulled off with force. I set it aside, figuring I’d glue it back later.

That’s when the clock began to change. The pegasus’s eyes, which I thought were painted, seemed to follow me. The wings, once fixed, twitched when I passed. I told myself it was my imagination, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I decided to take it down, store it in the closet. But as I reached for it, the clock chimed. It wasn’t the right time. The hour was off by two. And instead of the usual dust puff, a small, dark pellet shot out. It hit my cheek, stung. I rubbed it, and my fingers came away red. Blood.

The next day, I confronted Dale. He looked pale, exhausted. He admitted that the clock had been acting up ever since his marriage started falling apart. He’d tried to sell it, but the buyer backed out. He’d tried to destroy it, but it always ended up back on the wall. He said, ‘It’s not the clock. It’s something inside it.’ He showed me the inside—a hollow cavity behind the face. I peered in, and there was a small leather pouch, tied with a strand of hair. I pulled it out. Inside was a lock of deep red hair and a piece of paper with a name: ‘M. Astor.’ and a date—the day of my birth.

I felt a chill. I had never told Dale my full name, let alone my birth date. ‘Who’s M. Astor?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But I saw that name before. On a grave. In the old cemetery near my father’s house. It’s a family plot. The Astors were… they were hanged in the 1800s for witchcraft.’

I laughed, but it was hollow. That night, I dreamed of a woman in a black hood, standing by a gallows. She pointed at me, and I woke up gasping. The clock was chiming again—three in the morning. The pegasus was now fully alive, galloping in place, its hooves striking the wood. The knight was back on its back, but now its spear was aimed at me.

I tried to run, but the door was jammed. The clock pulsed, and the room grew cold. I could hear a whisper, like a voice carried through water: ‘You have it.’ I looked at the pouch in my hand. The hair felt like silk. The paper was warm. I opened it, and the name ‘M. Astor’ now read ‘Amelia Astor.’ And the date started changing, becoming tomorrow’s date.

I knew I had to destroy the clock. I grabbed a hammer from the kitchen and swung at it. The glass shattered, but the mechanism inside was intact. The knight leapt off the horse and onto me, its spear piercing my shoulder. I screamed, but no sound came out. The clock churned, and I saw the horse’s belly open, and a black void sucked me in.

I woke up in a field, under a gray sky. In the distance, a gallows stood. A woman in black was waiting. She held a spear, the same spear that was stuck in my shoulder. She smiled. ‘You’re the new one,’ she said. ‘The clock chose you.’ She pointed to a row of graves. ‘They’re all here. Dale’s father. Dale. And now you.’ I looked down. My body was wearing a tattered coat, my hands were gnarled. I was a figurine, mounted on a horse, frozen in mid-gallop.

I tried to scream, but my mouth was wood. The woman placed me on a shelf in a dark room. I saw other figurines—knights, soldiers, women. All silent. All dead. The clock ticked above me, its pendulum swinging like a metronome. And I knew: every hour, she would come, and she would fling one of us at the wall, watching us shatter. But we never shattered. We just lay there, waiting for the next hour.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time is meaningless. The clock still chimes, but now I realize—the clock is the world. And I am just a piece of it, trapped forever in the hollow body of a pegasus, destined to fly but never land, to fight but never win. The last thing I remember is the name on the pouch: ‘Amelia Astor.’ And a single tear rolling down my wooden face.