The clocks stopped at 11:59.
Not all at once.
First, the station clock.
Then the one above the hospital door.
Then every little clock
people had forgotten they owned.
Nobody panicked.
The trains continued arriving.
The children continued growing.
People fell in love,
argued over dinner,
and complained about the weather.
Only the seconds had disappeared.
At first, scientists called it a malfunction.
Then a mystery.
Then, eventually, they stopped giving it names.
Years passed without a single minute.
And strangely, nobody seemed older.
One morning, a little girl asked her grandfather:
“Does this mean we will live forever?”
He smiled.
“No. It means we have forgotten
how to count the time we have.”
She thought about this.
Then she asked,
“What\'s the difference?”
He looked at the clock.
For the first time in years,
he seemed afraid.
Because he remembered something
the world had forgotten:
The clocks had not stopped
when time disappeared.
They had stopped
when humanity stopped noticing
that it was passing.
And somewhere, beneath all that silence,
the seconds were still moving.
Not forward.
Away.
Away from every person
who believed there would always be
another moment to begin living.