The Pocket Watch

Once upon a time- all my favorite stories begin that way- a child found a rather large watch in a rather unusual place. The child was me, and the watch was a special one... but let's not hear this story out in the cold. Come in, sit by the stove while I finish supper. This season never seems to end, now does it? The wind, the snow, the sky- all polar and frostbitten, makes the whole world gloomy, but not by my stove. Now listen close.

I was walking down a path- barely a path, you know, only an impression in the leaf litter- through a forest, one of those perfect places that no one goes looking for. No, you have to stumble on them, find them quite by accident and explore them for hours while the outside world worries about you. Not that my father worried about me, or really my mother either- but for different reasons. My mother cared, I'm sure, but I wandered off without conscience nor consistency, and she needn't bother herself with my whereabouts. Sounds like a terrible attitude for a parent, I know, but things were like that in those days. We didn't need coddling.

Oh, yes. That quiet path, I was telling you. I'm sure I'd been rambling along it for an hour or two, drifting off it here and there, when the sun came through two intertwining branches just the right way and hit something glinting. Of course I ran to see it- all children are like that, aren't they? I know that you are- and I found a very old tree, one that might have been dead but wasn't quite, all covered with fingers of green and yellow moss. One short branch jagged out from the enormous trunk, and hung on it was a watch.

Your face screws up like a wet cat's when you're skeptical, child. I know, another watch would be ruined had it been waiting in the forest for years and years like this one seemed to have been. But this watch, though a little worn, was still shiny, and its face was grimy but intact. I took it down from that branch and then almost dropped it- it felt warm, which I didn't expect- but I held on tighter then, and cleaned the dirt off of it, taking great care. Beautiful thing- oh, how it glimmered once it was nicely polished! This was a pocket watch, one of those beautiful old things that every gentleman used to carry, with that satisfying tick marking each second. They reminded you of every moment's passing, in a special way that no plastic wristwatch can. That pocket watch was brass- gold, I thought at the time- with the loveliest hands, delicate and black on the white clock face. There were no numbers on that watch, every line was marked with a tiny and rather mystical symbol. There were three dials on the side; I supposed one of them was to adjust the time, but I didn't know which, nor what the others did. Carefully, I wound that beautiful watch.

How surprised I was when it came alive! It hummed in my hand, not like the mechanical things we have now, but like a cat's purr, unexpected but pleasant. I put it to my ear, listening to the lovely ticking, and then studied the moving watch hands. The smallest hand moved with each tick, but after watching, mesmerized, for a short time, it occurred to me that the others weren't. The minute hand- I thought it was, anyway- remained perfectly still, and I couldn't tell about what I thought to be the hour hand, but it didn't seem to be moving, either. Frowning, I twisted the lower of the three dials, hoping it was the right one.

It didn't work- not quite. The larger two hands remained stationary, but the small one raced around backwards with my twisting. So focused was I on the small watch face, I didn't notice my surroundings- how the trees shrunk and disappeared, with new ones appearing in their place, how the path faded away into nothing. Then a sound from overhead shook my attention, and I looked toward the sky. A terrible icy feeling stole over me when I saw them, child, a feeling I hope you never feel. They were airplanes. Dark little ships with wings and propellers, something I had seen often in my young life, but the war was over- had been for two years, two years of peaceful and quiet skies. I wondered if another war had started, but then I noticed that the planes were not like the ones I was so familiar with from the second world war. They were an older design, like I had seen from pictures of the first war, but surely those were not being flown any more...

I'm not sure what made me do it, but I had a feeling somewhere that the watch had caused this, and I turned the dial again, this time in the opposite direction. I watched the little hand spin forward, around and around the clock, further this time than before, and then a smell like charcoal made me stop. I looked up, then, and saw something worse than the airplanes. The forest was gone, replaced by black stumps and burnt earth. Far in the distance, I saw smoke- probably from the same fire that had been here, done this. I looked around me, trying to grasp what I had just done to the beautiful forest, and then I quickly turned the dial back. For a moment, I couldn't remember exactly how many times the hand had gone around, and panic crashed over me, but I stopped turning and saw the stump of the tree where the watch had been hanging- the tree itself had fallen down- and kept turning until the tree was alive again and at its normal height. Calm again, I was able to recall the hand's position, and now I took careful note of where each hand was, just in case.

I didn't want to risk it, but I was young- not much older than you, child, you understand- and the curiosity was far too great. I took a deep breath and turned the middle dial. The minute hand spun with it, this time, and the change was far more immediate than before. My whole landscape changed, a little different with every tick mark. I stopped turning, and right away the most terrible heat slapped my skin. There was nothing but sun and dry earth, little gravelly rocks all over, with a hot, parched wind sprinkling dust over me. I turned again, and was in the ocean- I couldn't swim, and was terrified to be surrounded by water- but before I went under I turned the watch again. I kept turning until I was far from the bitterly salty sea, and then stood dripping in another forest. This one was at night- I had traveled halfway around the world, child, though I can see you don't believe me- and I marveled at the stars, as I knew the patterns in them and could not find them here, but the trees whistled in the strong night wind, and the dark, coiled branches frightened me. I turned again, and found mountains. The elevation hurt my ears, enough that I felt ready to explode, but I could scarcely feel it in my wonder at the beautiful view. I could see the whole world, it felt! I kept turning, saw a distant village golden with lights and sounds, and a still silver lake, and a thick jungle with plants and insects I couldn't name, the sounds of birds I couldn't imagine, the growls of things I couldn't face. Then I turned again until I had reached the original position of the hand, and I was back in the forest. These incredible places, wonderful and terrible both, left me breathless, and I leaned against that nearly-dead tree until I was ready for the third dial.

The soup is ready, now. Child, don't tell me you aren't hungry- I can see those big eyes- take some bread, too. Better. Now let me sit down, because this is where the story gets good. This is where even the youngest, most believing child doubts my story, but like I said- you're special, maybe you'll trust an old woman and her fables. Right, now where was I at? The third dial- you payed good attention, I like that. Here we are.

This top dial didn't budge at first. I twisted harder, biting my lip, and then it sprang free of whatever had been sticking it, turning further than I'd intended. This one is hard to explain, and harder to understand, but you're a sharp one, so listen. Worlds- not worlds, not quite, different timelines, dimensions maybe- flipped by like pages in a book. The wind of this movement almost knocked me down. I tingled all over with the strange feeling, shifting, something that shouldn't be possible. I stopped, and I was floating in a thick purple substance, not a liquid, but not a solid either, and able to breathe but not knowing how. With difficulty, I bent to look at the watch, twisting it again. Many, many strange places flew by, and then I stopped. This one was more like ours, you see, in that unless you thought about it too hard, you stayed on the ground.

I thought about it and floated up to the ceiling, where a tangle of metal bits worked together, moving constantly, some too fast to see, others slowly but steadily, all connected in some way. Gears and pistons, other things I didn't- and still don't- have the technical know-how to describe, all working and moving. Throughout the maze of clicking and whirring machines, a river of bronze and silver gears turned one another, and I followed it through this strange place. It wasn't a room- that wouldn't be the right word- no, it seemed to go on forever, the floor carpeted with bulkier mechanicals, the ceiling decorated with these gears and knobs and other bits, running some enormous machine. I wondered if this whole place was one machine, if I were inside it right now.

A tunnel opened in the ceiling, and I hesitated. As I said, this busy place went on forever, and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere- but I didn't want to get lost. Everything felt slightly dangerous here. I saw that the river of gears went up the side of the tunnel, and that was enough for me; I followed the river up into the tunnel, landing on one of the sides and crawling up it as though it were the floor. Gravity was too much to keep straight there- makes my head hurt even now, some seventy years later. But it was awfully fun for a little girl, let me tell you. The gears disappeared some twenty feet into the tunnel, much to my disappointment. I was wondering where to go from there, but then I spotted the shape of a well-hidden door in the side of the tunnel. It slid open easily, and I crawled through, finding myself in a small room with an old man.

He saw the watch right away- I had it in my hand, holding tight so I wouldn't lose it and be trapped in this strange place- and he smiled at me. "Little girl," he said, "Where did you find that?"

"In the forest, hanging from a tree," I told him, half-doubting if he would believe me. But he nodded, taking out a thin and sharp tool and fidgeting with something from his pocket. I noticed that he carried a pocket watch tucked into his jacket, and following my gaze, he laughed and nodded again.

"Nothing fancy. Tells the time, simple as that, with a few other features I'm fond of. The piece you have is my greatest work, though it will have to be my least known. No one will believe the story of that watch unless they experience it for themselves, and a great many who do will attempt malicious things with it. That watch is a terrible power in the wrong hands, but you found me, so you must be the right ones."

I couldn't say anything to that, so I just turned over the watch in my hands and thought. Eventually, I asked how he'd come to be here.

"That's a long story and a dull one, compared to the story of what that watch will see in the future. I suspect it's seen a great deal already." He looked down at me through his metal-framed glasses, and finally said, "If you're a trustworthy person, then when you return to your tree in the forest, hang it back up and leave it for the next person. Take your adventure, tell it to anyone who you think will believe in it, but don't keep that watch, and don't tell anyone where the woods it's hidden in might be. Places like that have to be stumbled on; they can't be searched for. Only people who deserve to find the watch can find it in that forest, and I'd like it to stay that way for as long as it can."

"I'd like to be a trustworthy person," I said, meaning it, and I agreed to do what he asked. I'd enjoyed my time with the watch- of course I had, it had been the best time of my life- but it was a dangerous object, and even a child as young as I could sense that.

What happened then, you ask? That's the last part of my tale that matters, dear child. I turned back the dial, ended up back in the forest, hung the watch back on the tree, and went back home. I've spent the rest of my life telling children who are good at believing my story, and no one's ever believed it yet, but maybe one day someone will. The mothers in this village, don't tell me you haven't heard them, child. They tell anyone who will listen not to pay mind to the stories I tell, say I'm well off my rocker and always have been. I don't know if they're right or not, but I like to think it was more than a strange dream I've remembered these many, many years.

You believe it, you say, dear child? If you really do, then maybe one day you'll stumble on that forest path and find that watch hanging on the nearly-dead tree. Maybe you'll find the man among the machines and tell him that someone believed in the watch before they saw it. But it's dark now, and you don't want to spend the night in this little house. Run home, child, and I'll end this story the way I like stories to end- and they lived happily ever after.