The City That Measured Time

This text is freely inspired by Le città invisibili by Italo Calvino, and in particular by the city of Andria.

The movement was housed in a city-sized case, or perhaps the city had grown around the case; no one could remember which had come first. From the outside, the watch appeared ordinary, its dial pale and reticent, its hands unhurried. But beneath it lay the mechanism: a grand complication so extensive that its bridges formed neighborhoods, its wheel distr…