Knotline Belt

Fourteen knots at even intervals tie off this belt of pale cord, and one of them is always damp to the touch.

The wearer can read any rate by eye - a flow, a burn, a bleed, a falling sand - and say how long it has left. Each charge unties one knot and gives the wearer a full minute of unhurried thought inside a single heartbeat. The knots cannot be retied once the last is loose, and the eye for rates stays with the wearer.