Chapter 7 · free to read
Twenty years I wanted that book to stop existing. It took ninety seconds. Ending a childhood ought to take longer than that.
One corner survived. Stamped the way a workshop stamps its own stock: V & S, '81.
It had run fast since I was nineteen. I had reset it exactly never.
The book was ash. The watch kept perfect time. Whatever had been writing us was never in the paper.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.