Once, and still in some places today,
the progression of life was measured by the world itself.
The appearance of flowers, animals, the bend of rivers,
all marked the beginning, growth, and ending of journeys.
Then came a devourer, confounding and regimented, brittle yet unending:
Time.
Time came from Elsewhere,
a clockwork construct of malevolence and avarice,
a hungry labyrinth that sliced apart the world.
And with it, the creators of Time who embody its yearning will:
The Hours.
With Time came new alphabets,
spelling out infections
and digging into knowledge like a thirsty tick.
All the infection craves and consumes,
all is in service to a single aim and purpose:
claim the cinder spark that created all
and the dust that tends it,
and bring ruin everlasting.
Time is a Life-Hunter now,
stipulating the future and re-writing the past.
Time is the regret machine
that has sundered our connection to the world.
And Time’s creator and will,
those beaked and relentless Hours,
create horror after horror to flush out
sweet cinder and somber dust.
Their endless Logic has the tenacity of death.
Remember this, dear one:
Time is a liar.
There were never twelve Hours.
There have always been thirteen.