Clockwork

I had this idea for a little bit about revisiting the Pinocchio story, and make it about a clever young clock maker who builds an automaton. I don't remember exactly what I wished to accomplish with it. Something along the lines of a Tin Man kind of story. The automaton learns to love and saves the clock maker through the power of friendship or something. Then it got kind of dark, and the ideas became more about the clock maker fashioning himself an automaton companion to spend his life with, but ends up abandoning it when a witch curses him, because he won't sell her the automaton. He falls into a zombie servant kind of curse to serve the witch for the rest of his life and the automaton is abandoned to rust, because it doesn't understand why it was built and it was powerless to save it's maker. I don't really know any more. It's been too long. But here's Two different intros I tried out:

On a cliff by the sea (in retrospect, an awful place for a clock maker) stood a well built house. In this house lived a clever young clock maker. His name was Ivan and he could make anything you could imagine with cogs and springs. He made clocks for anyone who would buy them, He also made toys for children and adults alike. He once built a clock for the mayor that chimed every hour. And at six and twelve, it would put on a tiny, mechanical play. Ivan loved his work but was very lonely in his house by the sea.... 

Ivan sighed. He would never finish the Mayor's clock on time unless he worked all night again. He pushed his work spectacle up his nose and went back to fitting the minuscule gears into the tiny figures that would pop out of the clock every few hours.

"It will be an obnoxious piece, that's for sure," he muttered to himself. The Mayor had commissioned a huge, flashy piece, to put on an intricate, mechanized skit at six and twelve, and no bell or whistle was too much...