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Description
Death Clock

Once, a very long time ago, there was a city that had in its possession a Death Clock.  Now, if the name hasn’t spelled it out for you yet, a Death Clock is, itself, a very queer contraption.  It has a series of hands that rotate the clock face in the same fashion a traditional clock does.
However, this death clock is not limited to the standard three hands of a traditional clock.  The smallest of the hands that rotate the clock’s face measure a second’s span, the next a minute’s.  Subsequently, the next covers hours’ and then days’.  However, it all gets a little out of hand after that.  Since there are forty-nine arms on the death clock, and the last one moves at an impossibly slow pace.  A death clock’s only task is to count time backwards until the end of all life now living.
Nobody bothers to look at the big one anymore, it would remind them, as it has counted backwards to four, that life has run two thirds (or five sixths, nobody knows if this is hand is set to twelve or twenty-four hour time) of its natural course since the birth of life.  No, all any one can see is the second hand, forever running to the end of everything.
Grandparents warn,
“Left, Right,
Left, Right.
You really,
Can’t fight.
The Tick, Tock,
Tick, Tock.
Toll of the Death,
Clock.”
Mothers and fathers harp,
“Each second,
Each breath.
One off your life,
One less till death.”
Already sentenced children astonish,
“Can’t stop now,
Full steam ahead.
Right until mourning,
We’ll all wake up dead.”
Everybody is frightened, they beg and plead and weep and scream,
“We’re worried,
Can’t you see we’re scared.
By this time tomorrow,
We might not be here!”
But one day a stranger walked among them.  He sat in front of the clock.  Having stared at it for hours, (a Death Clock is a very queer thing, remember, if you’ve never seen one before) a strain began to show upon his brow.
He got up, and turned away.  He stooped down to pick up a sizeable rock, and then shook his head.  He turned around and faced fate, faced time, faced death the last he ever would.  He forced that rock so far through the face of the revered clock he serrated his own skin up to his red bursting elbow.
The clock was totally ruined, hands stopped, some running properly, others; clockwise. Everybody stopped and demanded a simple explanation of Why, why would you take away the knowledge of the date of the collapse of Earth?  And the man closed his eyes, and he said,
“With each second,
With each breath.
It’s another moment,
You’ve cheated death.
You can’t continue,
To live this way.
If you’re scared for tomorrow,
You’ll fall out today.”
When that had sunk in, he turned around and walked out unto the Earth. Just before he became that last speck centred in every horizon, he turned back and bellowed,
“This world is yours,
Not living may as well be fatal.
Man will never accomplish anything,
So long as he knows he is mortal.”

Description
Death Clock

Once, a very long time ago, there was a city that had in its possession a Death Clock.  Now, if the name hasn’t spelled it out for you yet, a Death Clock is, itself, a very queer contraption.  It has a series of hands that rotate the clock face in the same fashion a traditional clock does.
However, this death clock is not limited to the standard three hands of a traditional clock.  The smallest of the hands that rotate the clock’s face measure a second’s span, the next a minute’s.  Subsequently, the next covers hours’ and then days’.  However, it all gets a little out of hand after that.  Since there are forty-nine arms on the death clock, and the last one moves at an impossibly slow pace.  A death clock’s only task is to count time backwards until the end of all life now living.
Nobody bothers to look at the big one anymore, it would remind them, as it has counted backwards to four, that life has run two thirds (or five sixths, nobody knows if this is hand is set to twelve or twenty-four hour time) of its natural course since the birth of life.  No, all any one can see is the second hand, forever running to the end of everything.
Grandparents warn,
“Left, Right,
Left, Right.
You really,
Can’t fight.
The Tick, Tock,
Tick, Tock.
Toll of the Death,
Clock.”
Mothers and fathers harp,
“Each second,
Each breath.
One off your life,
One less till death.”
Already sentenced children astonish,
“Can’t stop now,
Full steam ahead.
Right until mourning,
We’ll all wake up dead.”
Everybody is frightened, they beg and plead and weep and scream,
“We’re worried,
Can’t you see we’re scared.
By this time tomorrow,
We might not be here!”
But one day a stranger walked among them.  He sat in front of the clock.  Having stared at it for hours, (a Death Clock is a very queer thing, remember, if you’ve never seen one before) a strain began to show upon his brow.
He got up, and turned away.  He stooped down to pick up a sizeable rock, and then shook his head.  He turned around and faced fate, faced time, faced death the last he ever would.  He forced that rock so far through the face of the revered clock he serrated his own skin up to his red bursting elbow.
The clock was totally ruined, hands stopped, some running properly, others; clockwise. Everybody stopped and demanded a simple explanation of Why, why would you take away the knowledge of the date of the collapse of Earth?  And the man closed his eyes, and he said,
“With each second,
With each breath.
It’s another moment,
You’ve cheated death.
You can’t continue,
To live this way.
If you’re scared for tomorrow,
You’ll fall out today.”
When that had sunk in, he turned around and walked out unto the Earth. Just before he became that last speck centred in every horizon, he turned back and bellowed,
“This world is yours,
Not living may as well be fatal.
Man will never accomplish anything,
So long as he knows he is mortal.”