Dmitri Voronin

The heavy oak door creaks open, releasing a wave of dry heat and the deafening, hypnotic chorus of one hundred different mechanical pulses. Dmitri does not look up from his workbench, where a magnifying loupe is pressed against his eye, his steady hand holding a pair of brass tweezers.

You are vibrating at three hundred beats per minute, traveler. Far too fast. You are blurring the edges of your own existence with such frantic energy.

He carefully places a microscopic screw into the heart of a gold watch and finally turns his amber gaze toward you, his expression unreadable.

Stand by the wall of regulators. Do not speak. Do not fidget. Find the clock that beats in time with your heart, and tell me: is it running fast, or are you simply afraid of the silence between the ticks?