The clocktower’s hands limp through fog, circling worn numbers, each tick a lie of forward motion, blurring into gray hum. The town curls inward, streets like veins clogged with steps that never leave, cobblestones smoothed by endless tread, looping back to where they began. In the attic, curtains rot to lace, roses faded to dust’s faint outline, swaying from habit, not breeze, as if movement could untie time. Beams groan under years piled like ash, pages stuck, stories looping to start, no end to their weight overhead. Market stalls slump, tarps sagging low, apples bruised, bread hardened to stone. Voices mutter to drown the quiet, trading coins worn blank by touch, a cycle of hands that never gain, bartering air in a tightening knot. Streetlamps flicker over cracked pavement, puddles catching light that never clears, ripples chasing drops to nowhere. Shadows stretch, then swallow themselves, redrawn each night in a tired map, the dark tide that won’t let go. The rhythm drones, soft and relentless, a thread pulled through the same frayed holes, ash settling back to a cold hearth. Shapes might be hands or knots, coiling where hope thins to air, singing only of waiting, whispering this is all there is.