No Borrowing from the Clock
The clock keeps the rules: no borrowing. No loopholes, no back-room deals, only this moment issued, stamped and undiscounted. We all arrive with the same rulebook: hands move forward; minutes don’t reverse engineer; tomorrow won’t extend a line of credit. Young hearts hear an echo of plenty. Age hears the tick as a metronome, steady as rain on sheet metal, counting out dances we’ll never learn. You are not here, and still you measure me. Your afterimage sharpens the edges of noon, tilts the compass of my errands, whispers, choose what outlives you. So I pay the hour in attention: one call I owe while voices still match, one refusal that guards what matters, one walk that teaches my lungs their names. By dusk, the day is used, not kept, spent like breath on what deserves it. If another morning is minted for me, I’ll meet it with exact change: no borrowing, only spending; no guarantees, only purpose; and the tender the clock accepts not money, not...