Oct. 25th, 2010

jack: (Default)
"When I was married, I gave her a square ring, and she gave me this pocket watch." I waved it vaguely and was brought up short by the chain. "Three years later, we moved to different countries and I never saw her again. But this watch, this watch. This watch has saved my life more times than I can count."

I flipped it open. "It doesn't tell the time so good, though," a woman helpfully pointed out. I blinked and looked round. I'd been telling this story in bars all over Eurasia, and they'd all blurred to together, but I would have sworn I'd been in the middle of a hotel lounge in South London, surrounded by a group of women and men from an advertising firm. Now I appeared to be somewhere... African, or possibly Asian, judging from the baked ground, the primitive equipment, and the vaguely foreign-looking people.

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