Silt and Gear

Gritty silt yields beneath a fingertip to reveal a fossilized gear fused into the limestone floor. The texture of shattered plaster shards resists against the skin, suggesting that time functions less like an arrow and more like a heavy sediment. Oxidized iron stains mark where metal and stone became indistinguishable through centuries of slow compression. Each apple-red bloom of rust reveals how distinct measurements eventually soften into one singular, calcified duration.