Thu, 4 December

How to keep four clocks honest: Take the largest. Wind it backward until it forgets what century this is. Let it argue with the second, which has always run three minutes fast out of spite. The third keeps perfect time but only in a kitchen where someone is boiling water. Remove it from that kitchen and it stops. The fourth was never a clock. It is a promise wearing a dial. It does not tick — it waits. Now: place all four on the same shelf. Do not align them. The gaps between their disagreements is the only accurate time there is. This is called collaboration. This is called December.