A whole day passed while you were arriving.
You turn on the innermost rings. The outer ones will look untouched when your grandchildren stand exactly here.
Nothing out there is coming for you. Nothing out there knows your name.
That is the mercy. Keep the watch anyway.
An eon is the largest unit of time anyone bothers to name. Four of them cover the entire history of the earth. Ours began roughly five hundred and forty million years ago, when living things first became complicated enough to leave a mark in the rock.
An observer is someone who watches and does not interfere. This page keeps one family's time in eight circles. The inner ones are ours. The outer ones were turning long before we arrived and will not notice when we stop.