TE16 Turkish Delight

Labyrinth into the kitchen and return with the tool box. I remove the small screwdriver from the top section. I turn the clock over. I pull out the winding key with my hand. I undo the screws on either side of the cover with the screwdriver. I line up the winding key and the first screws on the squares on the table top. So they will be easy to find when I’m reassembling the clock. I remove the alarm hand too and place it in the next square. When it’s the turn of the dial for adjusting the clock, I realize that it only goes forwards. When I turn it backwards it comes loose. I don’t bother trying to make sense of that. I place that dial too in a square. I slowly raise the back cover. I’m seeing the inside of a clock for the first time in my life. I won’t have seen it in my previous life. I don’t know the names of the cogs, coils and screws that are coming to life in the crystal light of the chandelier. The cogs spin at different speeds, in different directions. I can’t see the ant. It has fled inside the clock, to get away from the sudden flood of light. It has gone right to the bottom, to the dark side of time. It hadn’t occurred to me that a clock the size of my palm could have so many cogs. Cogs with serrated edges that tessellate with other cogs have created a covered sky, and they rotate. Or rather, the world and the sky rotate around them. The fate of everything depends on them. The sound of the clock, that can barely be heard from a distance, now rings out as loud and clear as a grinding stone. If I fell asleep here, if I rested my head on the table and drifted off, it wouldn’t be long before the sound woke me up. Is it the collective sound of all the cogs, or is it the work of a single cog? I examine a medium sized cog, wondering if that’s where the sound is coming from. I glance at the large cog at the bottom. I descend layer by layer, trying to

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