Tikumtok

There is a huge clock at the centre of the universe.  It has no face, no numbers and no hands.  From afar it would appear to be a huge pendulum that swings slowly and accurately for ever.  

In actuality, it is not a pendulum at all but a swarm of golden flies all pushing together for a tick and pulling back for a tock.  These flies are no ordinary flies.  They are the timeflies; the very heartbeat of existence.   Every planet, every world, every thing that has any sense of time, draws its beat from the hearts of the tiny time keepers.

When a timefly runs out of time, its golden wings dull, a new fly joins the swarm and the old fly flies its final journey.  It travels to a desert that is not on any map,  before dropping from the sky as dust and joining its ancestors.  The desert, of course, is better known as the Sands of Time.