Four minutes. Not missing in the sense of a gap I cant account for, missing in the sense that the dash clock said 23:41 when I pulled onto the frontage road and said 23:41 again when I parked in my own driveway, and the drive is eleven minutes, Ive timed it with a second phone sitting in the cupholder specifically because of this, so either I did eleven minutes in zero or the clock sat on one number out of some kind of courtesy. the first time this happened in March I wrote it off, cheap clock, bad ground somewhere behind the dash, fine. its not March anymore and its done this four times now that I've actually caught it, there might be more I didnt catch because you dont check a clock that isnt lying to you, thats the whole problem with clocks, you only audit the ones that already failed you once.

This is the same four minutes from the phone camera too, the one that reads 23:41 in two different frames taken what has to be at least ten minutes apart because I can see the porch light cycle between them, the bulb on the sensor timer that kills itself at eleven exactly and I know its eleven because the county makes you register the timer, theres a form, I have the form. so two separate clocks on two separate devices agree with each other and disagree with the porch. the clock-on-cam pages are still up if anyone wants the earlier version of this argument, 257 lying about its own timestamp and then just stopping, no correction, no notice, the box just started telling the truth again one Tuesday like nothing happened. I dont think this is the same machine. I think its the same method.

Four minutes is small. thats the part nobody wants to sit with, they want the dramatic gap, the hour you cant account for, the missing afternoon, and I get why, thats the version that gets you taken seriously at urgent care. four minutes gets you nothing. four minutes just makes you the guy who checks his dash clock against his phone clock in his own driveway at midnight, which I am, Ive made peace with that part. what I havent made peace with is that the valve box did something similar back in October, a reading that sat still when it should have moved, and I didnt connect the two until tonight sitting in the car not getting out. small thing, small thing, small thing, and then you've got four of them and a pattern isnt a diagnosis anymore its a shape. anyway. the porch light did its thing at eleven same as always, I got out of the car eventually, didnt write this down until the dash had gone back to counting normal, 23:42, 23:43, like it wanted me to see it catch up.