In the city of clocks, every tower bore a face. Some were golden, some silver, some black as midnight. Each ticked in its own rhythm: some hurried, some lagged, some paused with a hesitation that made the air quiver. Scholars walked from tower to tower, scribbling furiously, insisting there must be one true time — a single hour in which the city’s heartbeat could be known.
Liora arrived on a morning that had not yet decided whether it would dawn. She wandered through the squares, listening to the chorus of clocks, each inarguably certain of its own correctness. People rushed to reconcile them. They built gears that climbed towers, levers that stretched across plazas, and ladders taller than the tallest towers. They hoped to integrate every tick, to fold all times into one.
The clocks did not care.
When Liora lifted a hand toward a gilded face, its hour shifted by a quarter. A silver face in the square below slowed as she passed, as if giving her way. A black clock, tucked into a narrow alley, hurried its tick in response to her step.
She smiled. She understood that time was not broken. It had never been broken. The city’s urgency was a misreading: the clocks did not demand integration; they demanded attention, locally, in the presence of an observer. Each tick was a cut from potentiality to actuality, precise and coherent in its own frame, but impossible to superimpose.
Liora walked slowly through the streets. She did not try to reconcile the clocks. She did not write notes or take measurements. She simply moved, listening to the rhythm of each face, letting them weave around her steps.
When she left the city, she did not take a map. She carried only a small, hand-carved clock from a quiet tower. Its face was blank. It ticked only when she listened, only when she stepped, only when she was present.
And in its ticking, she heard the city, the multiple times, the impossibility of integration — and somehow, that was enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment