Broken Gears

Fine limestone grit wedges beneath fingernails as receding silt reveals a fossilized nautilus cradling a jagged clockwork gear. This mechanism, once part of an overlooked whole, rests like severed clay fragments left to bake in the sun. To touch these rusted teeth is to accept that every broken connection leaves behind an unyielding weight. One finds no path toward restoration among such ruins; instead, there is only the quiet decision to move through the wreckage as it remains.