There were smaller rocks, too, and Bellis saw that these were shards of the larger machines, bolts and pipework junctions; or finer, more intricate, and complete pieces, gauges and glasswork and compact steam-power engines. The pebbles were gears, cogs, flywheels, bolts, and screws.
Bellis looked down at her cupped hands. They were full of thousands of minuscule ratchets and gearwheels and ossified springs, like the innards of inconceivably tiny clocks. Each particle of wreckage a grain like sand, hard and sun-warmed, smaller than a crumb. Bellis let them sift from her hands, and her fingers were stained the dark blood color of the shoreline-painted with rust.
by maybe me one day, if I get off my ass and actually write China Mieville, "The Scar"