Every night, she checks a clock that does not belong to her.

It sits quietly on her screen, several hours behind the one hanging on her wall. The habit is strange, she knows. After all, she already knows what time it is where she lives. Yet she continues to look, as though those glowing numbers contain something more valuable than time itself.

Perhaps they do.

People often think distance is measured in kilometres—roads, oceans, borders, and things that can be drawn onto maps and calculated precisely. But maps are honest. They tell you exactly how far away something is. Time is far more deceptive. It hides inside missed calls and conversations that must wait until tomorrow.

The clock fascinates her because it seems to exist in a different reality. While her day is ending, another is still unfolding elsewhere. One sky gathers darkness while another still holds onto light. It is a peculiar thought that two people can live within the same world and yet inhabit different hours.

Sometimes she wonders whether hope is simply the willingness to trust what cannot be seen. The earth continues its silent rotation, pulling countries apart with every passing hour, yet somehow creating the possibility of connection at the same time. What appears to divide also creates the chance to meet.

So she checks the clock.

Not because she cares about the numbers, but because of what they represent: a person she cannot see, a conversation waiting to happen, a reminder that meaningful things do not always exist within reach.

The clock is not broken. It is merely telling the truth from somewhere else.

And somewhere else, in Norway, a young man is moving through a day that began hours after hers in Sri Lanka. Between their clocks lies a stretch of time that should feel empty. Instead, she has filled it with hope.