Upon waking, liquid seconds dripped from balconies; passersby opened umbrellas of shadow.
Sleepwalking watchmakers recommend folding the day into quarters and using it as a fan.
In the main square, the streetlamps have taken root and their lightbulbs have sprouted into bulbs of tepid light. The cobbles sweat the calendar and the shop windows yawn out mirrors that sleep standing up. People walk in dotted lines, so as not to startle the shadows, and each sidewalk breathes like a beast tamed by a dream.
“Since last night, the hours are all the same: they stack up like plates of tepid porcelain and chime when you blink,” murmurs Madame Dial, curator of the Museum of Frozen Sands, as she wipes an hour running down her elbow. She claims to have captured a wild minute using a butterfly net: the creature was beating numbers in slow motion, then surrendered, all folded up, into the inside pocket of a sleeveless coat.
At the market, they sell loaves of silence and moon moustaches, waxed with dew. Drawers grow on cacti and open by themselves to release memories wrapped in mist paper. Lobster-telephones ring, but answer only with sighs, and the station clock melts through the middle like a golden fruit upended on a plate of salt.
This evening, at the uncertain hour, the city will try to comb time back into place with a comb of cloud-ivory. The bells, well-bred, will come on muffled steps to count up to almost, then stop to contemplate the puddles of the future. All who show up with a recent dream will receive a sachet of seconds to germinate behind the half-closed lens of their eyelids.
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