Another piece from Johann Fischer’s diary, check The foreseen sorrow for the background.

Tick tock, tick tock, my clock. The warm sunlight of the day seemed to tempt my ears so that I did not notice it in the daytime. It is only now, at dusk, that I can hear the sound that has always been in my room.

Time marches on, but the hands go round and round on the dial. We move around aimlessly, only to end up in the same place, day after day, bored, without excessive joy or sadness. But life is a countdown, and the hour hand returns to where it was before, and you can never go back. And the only thing you can directly perceive in this humdrum life is the reality of your existence. But your life is forever fading away, every moment a little less than before. And so you feel a faint sadness, boredom in your life that you cannot erase.

Every day at dusk is the end. Life is only a little longer than a day. The sadder I get at sunset, the more I can’t help but think that at the absolute end of life, looking back on a life of nothing, I can only experience this soft sadness more clearly.