It was 2:00 first but not too long after it was 1:43. Then 5:20…. 11:56? This watch sucks. It keeps changing direction and speed. But the infernal ticking keeps pestering me. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick PING tick tick tick tick tick tick tick PING. I don’t know why it pings (it never did before) but it usually goes off when something almost falls on my head. It happens a lot. Falling items. I have a hunch they are trying to kill me. The first few times people said that it was an accident and apologized. Now there doesn’t even seem to be people around when it happens. 

I have another hunch. I think I’m not in the right spot. I think I fell somewhere right between here and there. But it doesn’t make sense why in between here and there wants to kill me. Did I miss the good/evil switch on my in or something?

 I was having a great day. No. A perfect day! I swore to myself that morning that my grandfather would be discharged from the hospital. Covid-19 apparently is worse for old men with asthma. I went to visit him as he got his final checkup, and he gave me the watch he always wore. And I mean while sleeping always. “Keep it safe.” He said to me, even though he had broken it long ago when he had collapsed. That’s when we brought him to the hospital. “I’ll keep it safer than you did!” I joked. But his face stayed serious. “What do you mean?” He fainted, realizing the watch was broken. I was about to reach out and grab him when my surroundings disappeared. I felt air rushing around me, I must have been shooting forward over a hundred miles an hour. Now I’m here.

Something I’ve noticed about the people between here and there is that they dress incohesive. I once saw someone wearing big black boots with a victorian era dress and a pharaoh's headpiece. Either time is all messed up, or cosplay is just madly evolved. 

I can’t help but notice one other thing. Nothing is finished. The buildings are perfectly cut into halves, thirds, and fourths. The sky is evenly split between night and day. But nothing is a whole. Even people. But that's a little different. It’s their personality, their memory, that's unfinished. I haven’t talked to many people, but they all seem to be lacking something. Like when I ask what this place is they just freeze. They’ll say “What do you mean?” or “I don’t know what you're talking about.” 

PING

Once again, something begins to fall above me. I’ve learned not to look up, for it only confuses me more, so instead, I run to the nearest thing that can cover my head. Which at the moment, happens to be ⅓ of a cowboy-movie-esque saloon. My watch ticks down to the pace of my feet hitting the ground, and as the next PING chimes, I’ve safely arrived at the almost empty bar. 

PING

I hear a loud crash and what sounds like a microwave alarming the end of a cycle. I don’t dare check. 

Anyways, weird thing number who knows what, after a few lucky dodges of falling items they began following me instead. Like it was learning my moves, I don’t even have a name for “it” yet, though but by now I should probably make one up.

“Whats ah whos your name?” A low scratchy voice comes from behind the bar. 

 “Hello?” It’s pointless talking to people here, but it can be fun sometimes. “Are you talking to me?” 

“WHATS AH WHOS YOUR NAME? HAVEN’T I AL’REDY ASKED YA?”

“AHHHH!”

“WHATS WRONG? IS THERE A ROBBER IN ME PUB?”

“No no no, sir, you just scared me, popping out from beneath the bar like that! Nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Yuh don’t say? Me grandma had one uh those when grandad died, cried like a little bay bay through the whole service!”

“I think you mean heartbreak.”

“Nuh-uh, that's how me grandad died.”

It’s fun talking to these people, but as I’ve said, pointless. Also as mentioned, this man dresses quite normally compared to most of the people I’ve seen. Well, not normal, he’s in full pirate uniform and gear with a single braid in his gray beard, but it’s not mixed with another time era as far as I can see.

“So whats ah whos your name?”

“I’m-”

“IME? Why that's a crazier name than mine!”

“No that’s not-”

“What you think you ain’t got a crazier name than mine?”

“But I don’t even know your name!”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“...”

“Whats ah whos your name?”

“Ah! Well, it a-surely isn’t as weird a name as IME, Einstein, nice ta meetcha!” I was mistaken, he isn’t completely whole either. “So what brings you here IME?”

“Here? You know what this place is?”

“Whatcha mean kiddo? This is my pub!”

“Oh…”

“If you’re gonna look so disappointed why don’t ya just get out?”

“No sir, I was just asking if you knew where we were in the world, not just was building we’re in.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re referring to but if you’re wantin’ to know something so obscurely insane you might want to ask..” somehow his voice seemed to sound clearer the more softly he spoke, “R-E-I-D!”

“Who is Reid?”

“Well I’d tell ya but you’re not even sayin’ his name right.”

“How do you say it?”

“It’s not pronounced, I like to read, it’s, I read a book.”

“Well, why didn’t you say just say his name?”

“Why don’t you know how to say things? Get out of me saloon now please!”

A somewhat shockingly helpful conversation but before I could ask where to even find Reid, he went back to hiding under the bar.

“GET OUT!”

…

I feel even more lost than I was when I first got here. After leaving Einsteins’ pub, I walked around asking everyone if they knew where to find Reid. A nice young lady dressed as a mix between a samurai and a Kshatriya tried her best to help me, but she ended up taking me to a store that only sold red dye. Not helpful, but I learned about cochineal, a tiny, cactus-dwelling insect that produces a vibrant red pigment, from the store owner. 

I’m beginning to feel hopeless here. I don’t know where I am (nor does anyone else), I can’t find Reid, and things keep falling on my head! I might as well just lay on the ground and never get back up. So I will. I lay down on this dirty half road and wait for the nightmare to be over.

“What are you doing there?” A man’s voice? Whatever he’ll go away soon. “If you just stay there, things will keep falling on your head!” I sit up straight to look at him. He’s dressed in a hoodie and jeans!

“Is your name Reid by any chance?”

“Huh? My name is Reid as in, I like to read. I guess you met Einstein right?” He’s reaching out his hand to help me up, but I can’t stop staring in awe at him. “Hello?”

“Oh, yes! Yeah, I met him. He said you could help me.” He gestures to his hand and I take it.

“Maybe… what's your problem?”

“This place!” I say pointing all around me. “How do I get out?”

“Get out?”

“Yeah get out, aren’t you trying to leave too?” He pinches his nose and sighs. Not a good sign.

“Are you dumb? You can’t just leave here.”

“So you know where this place is?” 

PING

“What was that?” He turns to look at me but I’m too busy looking above me.

Upon seeing my watch he grabs my arm and starts running. Great timing because the place he’s pulling me into has no cover! No cover. This is it. I’m gonna die! All because the man who was supposed to help me dragged me out into the open!

“Where are we going?”

“To get out of here!” Looking like he had a Eureka moment he snatched the watch off my wrist and turned it over. Something I never thought to do. I pulled away from him and we slowed to a stop.

“Who gave you this watch?”

“My grandpa, why?”

“Was his name Alvin Moy?”

“Yes, why?” He grabbed ahold of my arm again and ran. And I mean really booking it, my watch still ticking until we made it to a large half-dome that looked to be an old zoo exhibit. Once inside we wait for the inevitable-

PING

The ceiling must be made of glass because I can hear whatever item above me crash and crunch. 

“WATCH OUT!” Reid shoves me hard enough to make me fall on my butt, just inches away from a meat cleaver now laying still in a pile of glass shards. We sit there on the ground for a while catching our breath.

“So what’s up with the watch.” I waste no time getting to the chase as soon as possible.

“Mr. Moy created this place, and the only way to get in is with those watches.”

“WatcheS? There are more of these death traps!”

“Yes, and they aren’t death traps. Well, now they are, but they used to be like a controller. Mr. Moy’s, now yours, is the original. It must’ve gotten damaged and made this whole world flip out. It wasn’t always like this you know… it was beautiful, a masterpiece!” This isn’t making any sense.

“So what IS this place?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain… I guess the easy way to describe it is that your father found a  wormhole that took him to this place, and he found a way to make traveling here easier with technology. He wanted to start a new Earth.”

“So what happened when the watch got damaged?”

“I don’t really know… the wormhole closed and made everything inside scramble.”

“Can it be fixed?” I can tell he wants to say yes but his silence shows me otherwise.

“It can’t be fixed… but maybe we could just break it.”

“Break it?! Won’t we die?” 

“No! We have watches, maybe they will rip the wormhole just enough for us to go back!”

“You have a watch?”

“Yes! I and a lot of other people came here to help your grandfather build this place, but when yours broke, they stopped working..”

“There are more normal people here?”

“Not anymore. I was the only one not wearing my watch when yours broke, everyone else was and they scrambled just as much as the wormhole.”

“Then will everyone else go home too if we brake the watch?”

“No. They are part of the wormhole now.”

“Oh…” An instinctive silence washes over us.

My chances aren’t that good right now. Either break my grandfather's watch and get out or break the watch and nothing happens. The second outcome would really ruin my day.

“So are we doing this?” Reid breaks the silence. I hesitate.

“Yes.” Reid immediately gets ahold of the meat cleaver and puts the watch onto the cold concrete floor.

“You ready?” He asks.

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“JUST SMASH IT ALREADY!” Lifting up his arms behind his head, the metal shimmers in the half sun. I can hear air wooshing as he brings the cleaver down. Hard. The glass smashes to bits and little gears skid across the floor. He lifts the cleaver back up. Nothing.

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work. I’m sorry I told you yes.”

“Look.”

“I know, nothing happened I don’t need to see!”

“No! Look behind you!” I turn my head pitifully. “THE SKY!”

“See! It worked!” The halved sky is ripping open! Clouds are being sucked out through the growing hole, and we are going home! My limbs began to float upwards on their own. So we're Reids. 

“GET READY!” he screamed. 

“WHAT?!” Air rushes out of my lungs and I speed forward. I want to look around but my neck is stuck in place. My whole body is frozen. I hear my watch gradually slow it’s ticking until no sound comes from it at all. Wait. I stopped moving. The air goes in and out of my lungs at a perfect pace.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” Why am I falling? My body unfreezes and I swivel my head around looking for Reid. 

“OVER HERE!” I look to my left and there he is. Falling just like me. 

“WHAT’S GOING ON?”

“WHERE ABOUT TO LAND BACK ON EARTH!” 

“WILL I EVER SEE YOU AG-” Everything goes black. I can’t see! Help someone I can’t see!!

“Calm down!” It’s Reid's voice. “Open your eyes, kid!” I strain to lift my eyelids. It’s super bright. My head hurts. 

“Reid?” I see him bending over me.

“Come on, sit up.” He helps heave my body upward into a sitting position.

“Are we back on Earth?” My throat and mouth feel dry, and my eyes are barely staying open.

“Yeah, about that…” I look around, forcing my eyes open as far as they can go.

“Reid, Reid where are we?!”

“Turns out I smashed my watch instead of yours! Haha… ha.”

This day just keeps getting better.