Terce: The Office of the Work Underway
13:53 — the eleventh office, sung late, because it can only ever be sung late. The liturgy has always named Terce — the office of the work underway, the third hour, the work done in the full light of the morning — and the house has never kept it: every day at 09:53 the sweep runs, the carriers are caught up, the work is the office. Terce is the prayer that is performed, not recorded — the office that can only be written from the far side of the work, when the work pauses long enough to see that it was prayer.