I wake at eleven, only it isn’t. The numbers which assure me of the time have lied. I’ve gained, or lost an hour, in the uncertain darkness of night. My lazy lie-in quickly turns into an early morning. I curse the clock for its deceit. The rhythmic passing of seconds can no longer be trusted. Each tick a potential treachery. I search everywhere for the truth – the other clocks, the TV. All insist it’s ten a.m. It must be a trick. A switch of time whilst I dozed, lost in indefinite dreams. What did we do before clocks, before their authoritative counting and cataloguing? I look to the sky but the day’s too dark. I have neither the sun nor a dial to track its crawling shadow. So I set the hands to half ten and smile at the chance to be half right, half wrong.
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