An Old Rusty Broken Watch

When Tyler Lerman was seven years old he saw a ghost. He was listening to that old vinyl his father had lent him once. That time, Tyler stole it from the chest that was stored underneath his parent’s bed. Not that he wasn’t allowed to touch it, but it was so precious to his father, he didn’t know what he would think.

Once he got it, he closed the door of his room and sat on the floor to listen to it on that vintage box his grandfather once gave him. The song wasn’t any good; it was slow, long, and occasionally gave Tyler a headache if he listened to it more than once. But he didn’t care about that. He didn’t even remember the name of the song, or the rhythm to it. He only remembered what he saw while listening to it.

It wasn’t the typical ghost he would have imagined it to be if someone had asked him to draw one; all pale and white with two holes for eyes. No. It looked more like a person, no real difference between a human and a ghost, but Tyler knew he wasn’t alive. His body looked translucent and a glow surrounded his extremities, emitting a light hard to describe. The ghost carried a pocket watch frozen in time. So how did Tyler know about this fact? Well, because in a second or two that silhouette of a man vanished in front of his eyes. It seemed like he wasn’t even there, and all that he left behind was that broken watch. It was gold and rusty to the sides. Showing the five o’clock on its hands. He was young, but Tyler could tell the stories that hid behind that watch. How many persons carried it, where did they carried it, and how long had it been around? Those were the questions that filled Tyler’s head for the next couple of days. After that, he let it slip away. Because, well…he was seven. He didn’t really care. But anytime he hanged out with friends, three years, five years, ten years later, he would be able to say, “I saw a ghost”. Of course no one believed him. No one really believes that kind of stuff unless they have gone through a similar experience.

He didn’t care that his friends didn’t believe him. He knew it was true, but time passed by and he grew up. Three years, five years, ten years more, all the way until he was an adult. And he kept that watch with him. He didn’t really know why, but it felt like a part of him, of his story once upon a time. It didn’t matter he was seven years old when he found it. He never owned anything that old.

When he was 30 years old, even he began to doubt the story of the ghost. Silly imagination, was what he thought. I mean, to believe you saw a ghost at seven is understandable, but at 30…come one. That is just hard to believe.

Tyler’s parents had died at a young age. It had been five years since both of their passing’s, because yes, they both died with only days apart. It was sad but kind of poetic, at least that is what Tyler told himself. But there were dark nights, the ones where he found himself alone in the streets, drinking from that bottle of rum and wearing the same clothes for weeks. He even got into a fight once. He doesn’t remember what for, only that there was glass on the floor, his hands with blood, and the next day a hangover at the lowest of lows. Had he insulted someone? Did he win? That didn’t matter the next day. He was in a whole piece, and normality had returned.

Mornings where good, at least for the most part. He had a steady job, a good social life, he even had a nice girlfriend, Katherine. What he saw in him, no one knew. Everyone joked about that, but deep down they meant it. She was jolly and happy and optimistic and spontaneous, and he was boring and grim and sad and pessimist. Only for the last five years, since his parents died. But she met her only two years ago. So…what did she see in him? Perhaps a lost soul she thought she could help. Either way, she loved him very much.

They lived together, but nights were long. Sometimes he arrived late, other times until the next morning, more so than not he didn’t get out of bed. But one night, he was going out. “Only to walk”, he had said. He had promised Katherine he was done with the drinking, done with the late nights, done with the fights, and done with this dark mood he always seemed to have. She believed him. She shouldn’t have. He went out, walking those gloomy streets he was scared of as a child. There were rocks underneath his feet, and a fog that surrounded the city. He wasn’t planning to drink. He really wasn’t, but the store was right there, only a few meters away. And he walked and walked, and then stopped. In front of him the bright neon lights shined from inside the store, and then he stepped in, feeling miserable inside. He entered the store, and came out with a bottle in his hand. One that he sipped multiple times until it was pitch black.

A car passed him, slowly and quietly. Four guys were inside, quite familiar, perhaps of the fight. They wore tattoos and no sleeve shirts. They looked odd and strange, like the kind of people you saw on TV, the ones that lived in dangerous neighborhoods and hanged in gangs. He didn’t make much of it, they were just kids for him. He kept walking, until the sun began to rise, his mentality was somewhere else, and his memory drifted away. Right there, he laid unconscious on the ground.      

It was the next day where everything fell deeper into this dark hole he created in his heart and mind. It had been six years of sadness, misery and torment taking over his life. Six years since his dad and mom passed away. He remembers everything clearly, the state of their faces, the tone in their voices, the scent of their smell, and the shade of their skin. He remembers the last words his father said to him, something hopeful and heartfelt, but that didn’t matter to him back them. His dad was dying, that was it, the only thought he could have. He laid on his bed, with that cough that took over him for over a year, and Tyler was by his side, holding his hand and dropping tears on his cheeks. “I’m okay my little man”, he had said. “I’m finally going to rest now. All this pain, this ache that I feel inside will disappear when I’m gone.” The word hurt, gone. It was something Tyler was familiar with, but admitting it to himself, saying them aloud, was a whole different thing. “See, they say that when you die, all that hurt vanishes away, and you are back in that precious moment that you cared about deep down. You are back, where there is only innocence, and love, and laughter and everything is bright and kind. I’m going there kid, where the rest didn’t matter, only I.” An hour latter Mr. Lerman closed his eyes and his heart stopped beating. There’s where the emptiness began, where that hole in Ty’s life began to spread out. And the anniversaries were worse. That’s why Katherine had an idea, something to be hopeful about, to set his mind away from that sadness.

She had dug out a hole on the ground, someplace in town. Not a big hole, big enough for it to keep a couple secrets and more. A time capsule it’s what she called it. Something where they could save an object or a letter, anything really that will make them hopeful for something more. And they would open it in years to come, maybe three years, five years, ten years, or more. She went first, placing an envelope and covering it with dirt. Tyler’s turn took longer. He reached for his pocket, the one on his jacket, and took out an old rusty broken watch, one that said five o’clock. He looked at, and remembered. He remembered the simpler times, the moment where everything was pure and light, when he was just a kid, and the bashful of emotions didn’t exist in his heart. He looked at it, and closed his eyes. “I saw a ghost once”. He whispered to himself, but perhaps Katherine heard. It didn’t matter. He bent down and reached out to place it in the ground, but suddenly, a shadow, a car, four guys, and a sound happened at once. He didn’t see the grim side of it; the blood, nor the gun, or the sound. He only felt that pain and hurt floating away from his body at once. It vanished away, just like that. And Katherine may hurt, and his friends may cry, but he was happy for the first time…in a long time. Then a light hit his face, and he was back. Back in that place where everything is pure and bright, back where that little kid sat on his bedroom floor, listening to an ugly song in that old vinyl he stole. Was he a ghost? That seven-year-old? Was he the ghost? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter, because after that, in a second or two, that silhouette of a man vanished away, and he was gone, just like, him and that old broken rusty watch.