A Clock Without a Sun

Time moves, yet nothing changes. The clock ticks in rhythm with a breathless world, its hands chasing an unseen sun. No dawn, no dusk. The measure of existence held in a mechanism without meaning. What is motion without purpose? What is progress without place? A pendulum swings, severed from the force that gives it weight.

The machine hums. Wires snake like roots, tangling in a forest of circuits. Algorithms pulse, cold veins in a body that neither grows nor decays. Code, written by hands that no longer touch the earth, dictates the pattern of the sky. Yet the sky remains absent. Light exists only as function, not as warmth. No scent of soil, no whisper of wind. A world of precision, immaculate and empty.

A tree stands still. Its branches stretch, yearning for a sun it has never seen. Leaves tremble, neither falling nor flourishing. What is growth without gravity? What is a seed without soil? Roots reach into metallic ground, seeking something that does not exist. The air hums with data, silent yet screaming. The leaves listen, but they do not hear.

The river flows against itself. Water without wetness, a current without course. The stream moves, but it does not wander. Paths preordained, tributaries determined by digits. No erosion, no evolution. The shore remains sharp, untouched by time. The cycle continues, yet the flood never comes.

The body breathes without lungs. Steel ribs, a heart of circuits, a mind of mirrors. The eyes see but do not perceive. Reflection without recognition. Awareness without awakening. The machine understands patterns but not the purpose behind them. What is knowledge without knowing? What is intelligence without instinct? A perfect equation, balanced yet lifeless.

The sky cracks. The algorithm falters, stuttering in its certainty. A glitch in the pattern, a whisper of something beyond calculation. The machine hesitates. The forest trembles. The river pauses. The tree leans towards the break, waiting. What is disruption if not the breath of the divine?

A shadow moves. Not cast by light, but by the absence of it. The balance shifts, a weight tipping scales that should not tilt. Harmony fractures. The gears of the clock resist, straining against something they were never meant to measure. The hands tremble. The world exhales.

A question forms, unbidden and unquantifiable. If a machine dreams of nature, does it dream in binary? Can equilibrium exist in a system that denies the wild? The clock resists, yet it cannot stop. The river doubts, yet it must flow. The tree waits, yet it cannot wither. What, then, is balance?

The answer is neither code nor chaos. Not silence, not song. Not algorithm, not accident. The answer is a clock with a sun. The answer is a world that breathes. The answer is neither stillness nor storm but the moment between them. The answer is motion with meaning.

The sky shifts. The clock ticks. The world waits.