The Silence of Clockwork

The gears have forgotten their tension, teeth locked in a rusted embrace, where once the pulse of a second echoed against the glass.

Dust gathers in the hollow of the mainspring, a fine grey silt of vanished hours. The pendulum is a frozen streak of brass, arrested mid-swing in the heavy air.

No longer does the weight descend to pull the morning into afternoon. The room holds its breath, marooned in a permanent, golden five o'clock.

Outside, the shadows continue their drift, unmarked by the strike of the hammer. Time is a river that has bypassed this shore, leaving only the skeleton of its measurement.