The Clockmaker's Pulse

Small brass constellations scatter across the scarred oak table, teeth and pins waiting for the breath of a mainspring’s slow unwind.

He holds a sliver of silver wire, the tension of a heartbeat caught in a cage of gears, where friction is the only sin.

The room breathes in syncopation, a thousand metallic cicadas singing of the hours they carry, unfolding time like a heavy silk.

Shadows lengthen between the lathes, but here, the light is focused, a bright, singular eye watching the ghost of a second depart.