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Act 2 / 5

Clocks Under Other Skies

The Weather Clerk and the Missing Noon10 pictures

Across deserts, monsoons, mountains and the equator, local instruments disagree. The clerk discovers strings above the clouds and a brass hand behind the storm gate.

  1. Solar clocks bloom like metal flowers across a desert as the clerk compares their mismatched shadows.
    Field 02.01

    The desert reported three noons and trusted none of them.

  2. Beneath a vast monsoon canopy, rain beads travel upward along silk measuring threads toward hidden machinery.
    Field 02.02

    Here, even gravity had received new instructions.

  3. High mountain instruments stand frozen in blue ice while their needles point beyond the scale.
    Field 02.03

    The mountain had measured a pressure with no name.

  4. At a shadowless equatorial plaza, the clerk, bird and towers cast no silhouettes under a white vertical sun.
    Field 02.04

    At true noon, the missing hour left no place to hide.

  5. Coastal gauges, tide rulers and tiny lighthouse dials all lean inland as a violet sea withdraws.
    Field 02.05

    The coast recorded a tide pulled from above.

  6. Messengers from many countries gather with thermometers, wind ribbons, snow jars and handwritten observations.
    Field 02.06

    Different instruments. The same impossible signature.

  7. Fine puppet strings descend from the clouds and attach to weather vanes, umbrellas, towers and waves.
    Field 02.07

    The forecast was not predicting the weather. It was steering it.

  8. The clerk cuts one glowing string, causing a dozen neighboring strings to snap tight across the sky.
    Field 02.08

    One freedom tightened twelve restraints.

  9. An enormous brass hand reaches through cloud layers and quietly rearranges a procession of storms.
    Field 02.09

    The hand moved carefully, which made it worse.

  10. The clerk stands before a colossal storm gate whose rotating clouds form a keyhole around a distant tower.
    Field 02.10

    Beyond the gate, somebody was rehearsing tomorrow.