The Real Clock. The clock is not time itself, of course, but a representation of time. Without discussion or debate, scientists, historians, and poets would agree that time is the continuum of change, that a clock's rotating hands are synonymous with movement forward in time, and that, since the clock only represents time, if a clock stops, real time does not stop.
Real time is simple.
It always moves one way, forward. Although stopping or reversing time is not a realistic endeavor, much human enterprise is based on this goal. Cosmetic surgery or treatments applied to faces or bodies may seem to slow the effects of time, but they cannot permanently reverse them. Materials are maintained and repaired, but the advancement of time is absolutely equivalent to change, deterioration, decay, and, ultimately, loss or death. The real clock says that the built environment as we know it today will be the domain of archeology, in time.