How long did it take for a wound to heal?
It was a complicated question.
Day zero: the red gates swung open. Fibers wove together as they broke apart, forming a thin membrane, and the blood clotted into mounds.
For three days and nights, tiny patrols labored without rest, devoted to devouring and burning, clearing away the dead and the life that should not exist here.
Day seven: vivid red, moist tissue, full of breath, pushed out, and new, delicate skin crept along the edges. A bed of granulation tissue spread over the wound, sealing the gap.
Day fourteen: the redness receded, the granulation tissue smoothed out, and a stronger order took shape in secret, its tension hardening at the surface.
Only after four cycles, each long enough to create a world, did the scar finally mature, waxed layer upon layer like an old scripture, hard as salt crystals. The trauma he had suffered was now in the past. Whether anything could be learned from it remained to be seen.
For elderly patients, the process might take thirty percent to twice as long. Infection could double that again, and having both made it take even longer.
Time always flowed differently when one was ill, leaping in nonlinear fashion.
Between deep sleep and brief awakenings, the sun was moved without rhyme or reason. Each time, the light outside the window caught him by surprise.
The borders of dreams had always been hazy. Time collapsed in sleep, impossible to distinguish. Sometimes it felt as if several days had passed in a single night, or even as if dawn and dusk had switched places.
But once he awoke, the world seemed to move abnormally slowly.
The hourglass seemed filled with water, each grain falling with a sluggishness that was unbearable, enough to make