City of Clocks

In the far East of Europe, in a land that was once the heart of Bohemia, is a city of clocks. There are clocks mounted on red roofed buildings, clocks to tell the season, a clock to count the stars, a room in city hall with a crinkled old man paid to watch a crinkled old clock. Oaken clocks, granite clocks, brass clocks, crystal clocks the color of the Vltava in winter, summer, and spring. Clocks of leaves and crucifixes, a clock of saints and a hundred clocks of sinners.

On every wrist, a ticking clock, sometimes two or three. From these people the Mayan's learned their apocalyptic calender, the Romans their Pagan holidays, carbon atoms learned their half life and God was told 144 hours of work and no more.

It takes 11 minutes and 56 second to walk from Our Lady Before Tyn across the Charles Bridge. Takes 3 minutes and 12 seconds to sip a warm cappuccino. It takes 4 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, and one second for me to realize that I want to go home and no time at all to know that I can't yet.

So I'll watch the clocks count up the seconds, the hour glasses spill sand downward, the sundials fade to darkness, and the season tilt closer to frozen.