Stone Witness
A lamp’s beam cuts through darkness, revealing fern fossils embedded in layered rock—a shoreline compressed by epochs. The geologist traces quartz veins fracturing established sequences, observing breaks where timelines dissolve rather than connect. These incomplete records hint at time as an act of both preservation and erasure, a complex picture built from intervals instead of continuous flow. A cool grit clings to the skin while handling the stone, its texture refusing simple interpretation, hinting at states beyond current comprehension.