What If Clocks Forgot Noon

Suppose noon simply stopped arriving. Morning stretched, yellowed, grew heavy at the edges the way old paper does. Birds that sing at midday would open their beaks and produce only a dry click. Shadows would lengthen forever in one direction, pointing east like accusations. Bread left to rise would keep rising, slowly crowding the kitchen, then the hallway. The word afternoon would sit in the mouth with nothing behind it, a key that opens a door someone bricked over decades ago. Time would not end. It would thicken. That is the part no thought experiment warns you about: not the absence, but what stays.