Because a non-mechanical clock strikes the hour before the town criers finish their stories
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In "Exhalation", by Ted Chiang, the narrator suspects that something is amiss in the world because a number of clocks simultaneously appear to be running fast but they are not malfunctioning, so he decides to discover if their brains are functioning slowlier. "Exhalation", is a science fiction short story that depicts a world of beings whith lungs that are filled in air stations.
