Businessmen with Stopwatch Hearts: Steampunk

Their chests ticked when they walked past her store, and the ticks dragged slower as they headed home at the end of the day, where their faithful wives would feed them dinner and put away their shoes and wind their stopwatch hearts. A gold chain went from their pocket to where there used to be a fob watch, but she knew that the chain went through the pocket of their waistcoat and between their ribs, right into the shining globe holding their stopwatch heart where there used to be a real one. Somewhere, the hearts were hidden, and when they remembered, the businessmen with stopwatch hearts might even try to find out where, not remembering exactly why it was important, since everything ran so smoothly by the ticking of their new heart, but because perhaps their wife would nag them until--

Inspiration: "Businessmen with Stopwatch Hearts" - Delirium
Story Potential: High
Notes: Mixes: heart of stone, deal with the devil, corporation as evil, steampunk, quest to regain loved one. Good stuff, could tap pretty deeply into Story Mythos. And, y'know, clockwork hearts!


Edited to add: Written as "Businessmen with Stopwatch Hearts," rewritten as "The Key to His Heart," and published 01/24/2010 at Thaumatrope.