move, yet it did make progress.
He watched it for perhaps five minutes. It moved through a space
of perhaps five seconds.

"Well, that is not my problem. It is that of the clock maker,
either a terrestrial or a celestial one."

But he left his rooms without a good breakfast, and he left them
very early. How did he know that it was early since there was
something wrong with the time? Well, it was early at least
according to the sun and according to the clocks, neither of
which institutions seemed to be working properly.

He left without a good breakfast because the coffee would not
make and the bacon would not fry. And in plain point of fact the
fire would not heat. The gas flame came from the pilot light like
a slowly spreading stream or an unfolding flower. Then it burned
far too steadily. The skillet remained cold when placed over it;
nor would water even heat. It had taken at least five minutes to
get the water out of the faucet in the first place.

He ate a few pieces of leftover bread and some scraps of meat.

In the street there was no motion, no real motion. A truck, first
seeming at rest, moved very slowly. There was no gear in which it
could move so slowly. And there was a taxi which crept along, but
Charles Vincent had to look at it carefully for some time to be
sure that it was in motion. Then he received a shock. He realized
by the early morning light that the driver of it was dead. Dead
with his eyes wide open!

Slowly as it was going, and by whatever means it was moving, it
should really be stopped. He walked over to it, opened the door,
and pulled on the brake. Then he looked into the eyes of the dead
man. Was he really dead? It was hard to be sure. He felt warm.
But, even as Vincent looked, the eyes of the dead man had begun
to close. And close they did and open again in a matter of about
twenty seconds.

This was weird. The slowly closing and opening eyes sent a chill
through Vincent. And the dead man had begun to lean forward in
his seat. Vincent put a hand in the middle of the man's chest to
hold him upright, but he found the forward pressure as relentless
as it was slow. He was unable to keep the dead man up.

So he let him go, watching curiously; and in a few seconds the
driver's face was against the wheel. But it was almost as if it
had no intention of stopping there. It pressed into the wheel
with dogged force. He would surely break his face. Vincent took
several holds on the dead ma