I wish I had never found this goddam watch.

I’ve disemboweled it with hammers, cinder blocks and the heel of my boot. Skipped it across calm waters. Watched glowing embers consume it, slowly with calm alacrity. I’ve watched it slip into concrete depths and muddy hollows.

Yet, it’s still here. No matter how carefully I ensure its temporary destruction, it reappears. Shinned, scrolled silver, pearly faced, decorative flor de lis hands gliding over Roman numerals. An over-sized worn crown and large looped Figaro chain. In perfect working order. Keeping time. Making time.

Time. I have no idea how long it has been since I found it, laying open, handsomely displayed on the garage sale folding table between pairs of tube socks and caramel colored carnival glass.

I could see her in my periphery as soon as I pulled the watch from the red velveted box. She halted her yarn in mid-bobble, scrutinizing me behind her sun glasses, the effective, oversized ones you get at the optometrist. She leaned forward in her sagging lawn chair as if she was readying for a potential pursuit.

“That’s my husband's…was.” She said, placing the knitting needles into a plastic grocery sack.

“How much do you want for it?” I said.

It was her grin. Now that I think about it. Like the Cheshire cat. Broad. Bright. Almost too large for her narrow skulled face. The teeth were too perfect. They conflicted with the thin skin draping coldly around them, against the jutting cheek bones and forehead, like a thread bare sheet blanketed over an antique in a dusty attic. Her incongruous smile wasn’t untrustworthy at that moment, it became so, much later.

She struggled standing, hunched, unfurling slightly, ambling towards me. She smelled like mothballs and gin. “Take it. He doesn’t have any more use out of it. Ever since I found him dangling in the garage.”

She shifted her feet, tossed a knuckled thumb towards the detached building. I imagined for a moment him still hanging behind the closed door. Swinging slowly. Clockwise. In his Sunday best, his belly sliding out from underneath the suit jacket. His chin laying on his chest. Reflecting an ‘oh well’ kind of posture. Or, laid back in the matching lawn chair. Arms dangling. Legs protruding. Head, gone. Shot gun balanced between his legs, erect.

“Go on. Take it. You seem like a nice young fella.” Her smile was genuine. Terrible, but genuine.

It is here that I’ve come back to a hundred times. Trying to dissuade the old lady, myself, unsuccessfully. No matter how I try, the watch wins. Beyond this point, the future is either fucked or really fucked no matter what I do.

You see, I pressed the crown of the watch. Time froze. Everything did. The old lady’s wretched gin-soaked grin. The college kids struggling their new davenport sofa into their truck. Her husband swinging in the garage, I supposed.

The watch-controlled time. I could pause it and reverse it. Forwarding was only possible to return to the constant. Too many variables existed and time was woven the rate it passed.

I walked for miles, days among the frozen. I’ll be honest, I was inappropriate with some and really inappropriate with others. Once, I went back to watch the old lady’s husband, who was in his Sunday best, watch dangling from the suit vest, entering the garage with a note pinned to his chest.

I figured a decade would be far enough to go back. It started with cash registers, then banks and of course the jewelers; casinos fell, stock market suited assholes followed closely and based their actions on mine.

I had everything and anything I wanted, until the point. The mathematical point at which I acquired the watch. Time has its own rules and at that point everything catches up and there is no other way of putting it, everything and everybody is fucked. Sometimes it’s a day, a week or seconds after the point, but the fabric of time loses its threads. Terrible things. Unholy, unbelievable things happen.

I’ve been back and forth, before, after, during. I try to undo what I did. Get back to zero, but I can’t. It’s the butterfly effect. I return to influence the colored wings trajectory, but the waft of air produces an action, mathematically compounding to deafening and terrifying results.

The only good thing I have found with the watch is the value of time. Not in a secular definition, but mathematical. Time is funny, not in the context of being preciously and abusively squandered as it passes, but in the measured seconds and milliseconds of our chosen actions. It’s the split second you pause at an intersection and you narrowly miss the guy running a red light. It’s the hurried actions that precede life altering moments. Our daily routines and connections in measured time decide life or death for us.

I’ve wondered, mostly at night, in the dense hot air; the night before the point, moments before time catches up on itself, whether or not I can continue. I’ve aged terribly and can only imagine how long I’ve been traveling. I have unbegrudgingly made my decision.

If you are reading this letter. I stole this suit from the house next to this garage and I apologize. If you are the old woman who finds me dangling from the rafters, I am terribly sorry for any inconvenience. Whoever you are, could you please get rid of the watch that’s in my vest pocket. It will only bring misery to the person holding it.

Sincerly,

A tried traveler.

Woman: "You feel isolated, afraid, alone, abandoned, ashamed, but please believe: you are important. You are valued. You are loved. You are remembered."

Little girl: "I feel insignificant, and never good enough, but I don't have the words to explain it, and I don't think anyone would listen. Even if they listened, I don't think they would hear. No one would understand."

Woman: "You are significant. You are worthwhile. You are a quality individual. You are safe. You are cared for."

Little girl: "Everybody loves babies and toddlers, but the older I get, the less people are interested in me."

Woman: "That may feel true, but it isn't. People just don't know how to relate. Let their insecurities be their own, don't make them yours. Believe in yourself, believe in your future, trust your own judgement."

Little girl: "It feels as though society has passed their judgement on me."

Woman: "It does feel like that. And many people have done just that. But for every person who has judged you harshly, there is another who thinks highly of you. Unfortunately the hateful folks are generally the louder. You will discover later in life, there are dozens who hold you in high esteem, who speak well of you, and are fighting for you."

Little girl: "How do you know this?"

Woman: "Because you grew up to be me."

#conversations #wishihadknown

"Oh wow, hey Metal Man! What're you doing back in town?"

"Oh, I'm really just visiting to see my Metal Mom and Dad."

"Oh, well that's great! How's life down in Tin City?"

"Well, frankly, Mark, it hasn't been that great. I've been struggling to pay my rent, especially when I also have to pay my car insurance."

"Well, Metal Man, you know you're always welcome to stay with me if need be. I hope that comforts you at least a bit."

"No offense, Mark, but it really doesn't. I'm a proud Metal Man and to have to leave my apartment to live with a friend because I can't afford rent on my own would really fuck with my ego."

"Alright, Metal Man, I understand."

"How's the wife-?"

"-Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and stop you right there. Metal Martha died last month, and things weren't really going well before she passed either so I'd rather not talk about any of it. Although, I think you might already have an idea about the whole thing."

"Boy, this chance meeting took a dark turn."

"I'm going to be straight up with you, Mark...did you make sweet love to my wife?"

"I think I'd better go."

"That's all I needed to know."