The longer arm just ticked as it moved one-sixtieth of an hour over the impassive white face. It is officially 12 o' clock at night. I'd always wondered what it would be like to actually see the hour hand of the clock move. It's always the second hand that you see tick-tocking it's way in untrammeled, incessant revolutions. Sometimes you may even be surprised to see the minute hand suddenly move when you accidentally happen to glance at the clock. But the hour hand...it creeps surreptitiously, in a meticulous, veteran though somewhat phlegmatic way, so far as to arouse my interest in the topic. Why haven't I ever seen the hour hand move? Why does it always seem to be there, steadfast and timeless, waiting for the minute hand to complete it's jog around the clock, as if waiting to say, "Where were you? I've been here so long!"

Yet time goes on. In its slow, unruffled way. Never regretting today. Never craving a drink before tomorrow dawns. Never living. Always dead. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.