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jack"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.
I squeezed my eyes shut and I tried to replay my recent memory. I remembered of a lot of self-indulgant complaining, and more and more talking with my arm round someone. Come to think of it, I think maybe I'd conflated the hotel with an airport departure lounge. I rubbed my face. I had the impression of days missing from my life.
But I coughed, and tried to continue the story. "Ah, my friend," I began. "My beautiful friend. You see, if you want to know the amount of time that has passed, or will pass, between now and midnight, then, well, no, my watch is not the most felicitacious equipment to be weilding. In fact, I have a different such device for--"
I patted my wrist, and then looked down carefully. I wore a separate wrist-watch to tell local time, but there wasn't one there, and nor did I recognise the clothes I was wearing. I normally always wore some sort of jacket to tuck the pocket watch into, but apparently at some point I'd knotted the golden chain round my neck instead. I seemed to be wearing some sort of military camoflage jacket over tracksuit bottoms and a pyjama top. I patted the jacket vaguely, and it seemed it did have lots of pockets, so I guessed I'd hastily secured the pocket-watch before I'd acquired the jacket, however that was.
"I normally use an ordinary watch. This other watch, my special watch, rather tells the time according to the length of my life."
I suddenly remembered why I'd been telling the story. It seemed most of the people here were going to market in the local town, a few driving, and those without a vehicle walking. At this point on the road, there was a red flag stuck in the ground, which the people assured me was a warning that the road had been mined.
I had a vague impression I was on a continent where civil wars, or wars happened. Someone had mined the road, and either obligingly put up a warning to the locals, trying more to block off the road than to actually inflict casualties, or someone else had come along and marked the warning later.
Land mines manufactured now were all supposed to eventually safely expire, but if they'd been planted this week, that wouldn't make them any less deadly to us. I had a vision of rough, ill-equipped troops mining the road as best they could, not enough to truly block it off, but enough to make avoiding it easier than traversing it. But then, for all I knew, it had been mined by the local imperialists, in a resource-profligate effort to tamp down the local insurgents. I didn't know -- maybe none of the people knew. Anyway, I didn't care. I'd been going to town for some reason, and I couldn't remember what it was, but I bet it involved clean sheets, fresh water and good drinks, and probably women.
One of the women had reached the flag first, and waited for someone else to talk it over with. A few more people had trickled in, from the village and nearby farms, a couple of vehicles pulled up awkwardly at the side of the road, and people had debated furiously. Several had headed back. But an enterprising and helpful woman had unloaded her capacious goods, revealing a small barrel of incredibly strong self-brewed beer, laid down a blanket, and divied it out to anyone willing to help make up the small profit she'd hoped to make in town. Several people had resignedly plunked themselves down with her to gossip and wait.
Some thought that there would be a convoy of some sort, that might have to clear the mines, else why would they have been planted today? In fact, I suddenly had the impression that it had already arrived, but then turned back to do... something, but had been going to return later on. Perhaps with some relevant equipment, or someone with more responsibility. And I suddenly I had another flashed, seeing myself crammed into the back of a truck with a group of soldiers against all regulation, one sitting surreptitiously on my lap and kissing my nose while I gently fondled her through the thick uniform. I thought I'd actually been riding on that convoy, and then elected to wait here instead.
I stood up decidedly and wobbled forward along the road. With each step the baked earth pounded my feet sending a shock all the way up into the back of my head. "Ladies. Gentlemen. I will now show you the way along the road, without triggering any of the mines." I shook off a few restraining hands and raised my arms dramatically, holding my pocket watch awkwardly over my head as the chain dug into the side of my neck. "From you, I only need one thing, a promise that you will stay back and if I do trigger any of the mines, if I do, you will not try to come near it. Or bring me back. Or bring me any medical attention of any sort."
I was speaking over a rising gabble of objections, but I shushed everyone. "I assure you, I'm not joking, and I'm not being noble, well maybe a bit, but not about this."
"That is completely impossible," declaimed a man with a small mustuche, who had been mostly quiet to this point. But the rest were nodding with him. I tried to remember what I'd said, and agreed it didn't sound very sensible. I was about to continue in this vein and hope to pursuade enoguh people, but I glanced at my watch, and the hands were wobbling a bit, but remained unmoved, and I saw it was hopeless.
I looked around for inspiration, and as my eyes fell on a small pile of equipment thrown down at the side of the road by the jeeps, I realised what I could do, and the watch chimed gently as the hands spun rapidly backwards several times, and I smiled.
Half an hour later, I'd abandoned any pretence at pursuading people I was sane, but had scavenged a few near-empty petrol cans from the pile, and adjusted the volumes until they seemed full of a nice fuel vapour and air mix, and strapped them round my body. I couldn't recall exactly what I'd claimed I was trying to do, but the general effect would be that any explosion would become a much worse explosion, and my watch confirmed that my time of death had spun back from several years or decades hence to only a few minutes.
It felt like I was committing suicide, which was not the most ridiculous thing I'd planned when drunk, but I thought it would work pretty well. I began ambling slowly up the road, making sure to cross from side to side to cover the most likely pressure points, and yelling to the villagers to keep back, to stay back, and to not come any closer.
I watched my watch, and the hands ticking slowly backwards in about real time. Ten minutes later they stood less than a minute from midnight, and I began to be careful. I glanced back, and saw most people had followed, but at a very cautious distance. I'd finished my plastic tumbler of beer, and wished I'd thought to bring a bit more, but didn't want to call the woman up now.
I inched forward until I was about ten seconds from midnight, and stopped, and saw the hands slowly start to recede. I turned my body from side to side, starting to move first this way, then that way, until I saw which directins led the hands to recede further, and which one led to them flicking forward like a barometer dropping.
I stopped, and checked my reasoning in my head. The first mine was directly in the direction I was facing, to one side of the dirt track, less than ten meters ahead at a slow walk. As I decided that the hands spun rapidly again, retreating to a comfortably distant future. I looked at the ground where the mine hid. I could try to mark it, or retreat and try to set it off. I realised I probably should have thought about that before I'd come this far, although I wasn't sure if thinking through more details would have persuaded people I was more sane, or less sane.
I glanced back, about to gesture the people to come up to me, when I saw the jeeps approaching again in the distance.
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.
I squeezed my eyes shut and I tried to replay my recent memory. I remembered of a lot of self-indulgant complaining, and more and more talking with my arm round someone. Come to think of it, I think maybe I'd conflated the hotel with an airport departure lounge. I rubbed my face. I had the impression of days missing from my life.
But I coughed, and tried to continue the story. "Ah, my friend," I began. "My beautiful friend. You see, if you want to know the amount of time that has passed, or will pass, between now and midnight, then, well, no, my watch is not the most felicitacious equipment to be weilding. In fact, I have a different such device for--"
I patted my wrist, and then looked down carefully. I wore a separate wrist-watch to tell local time, but there wasn't one there, and nor did I recognise the clothes I was wearing. I normally always wore some sort of jacket to tuck the pocket watch into, but apparently at some point I'd knotted the golden chain round my neck instead. I seemed to be wearing some sort of military camoflage jacket over tracksuit bottoms and a pyjama top. I patted the jacket vaguely, and it seemed it did have lots of pockets, so I guessed I'd hastily secured the pocket-watch before I'd acquired the jacket, however that was.
"I normally use an ordinary watch. This other watch, my special watch, rather tells the time according to the length of my life."
I suddenly remembered why I'd been telling the story. It seemed most of the people here were going to market in the local town, a few driving, and those without a vehicle walking. At this point on the road, there was a red flag stuck in the ground, which the people assured me was a warning that the road had been mined.
I had a vague impression I was on a continent where civil wars, or wars happened. Someone had mined the road, and either obligingly put up a warning to the locals, trying more to block off the road than to actually inflict casualties, or someone else had come along and marked the warning later.
Land mines manufactured now were all supposed to eventually safely expire, but if they'd been planted this week, that wouldn't make them any less deadly to us. I had a vision of rough, ill-equipped troops mining the road as best they could, not enough to truly block it off, but enough to make avoiding it easier than traversing it. But then, for all I knew, it had been mined by the local imperialists, in a resource-profligate effort to tamp down the local insurgents. I didn't know -- maybe none of the people knew. Anyway, I didn't care. I'd been going to town for some reason, and I couldn't remember what it was, but I bet it involved clean sheets, fresh water and good drinks, and probably women.
One of the women had reached the flag first, and waited for someone else to talk it over with. A few more people had trickled in, from the village and nearby farms, a couple of vehicles pulled up awkwardly at the side of the road, and people had debated furiously. Several had headed back. But an enterprising and helpful woman had unloaded her capacious goods, revealing a small barrel of incredibly strong self-brewed beer, laid down a blanket, and divied it out to anyone willing to help make up the small profit she'd hoped to make in town. Several people had resignedly plunked themselves down with her to gossip and wait.
Some thought that there would be a convoy of some sort, that might have to clear the mines, else why would they have been planted today? In fact, I suddenly had the impression that it had already arrived, but then turned back to do... something, but had been going to return later on. Perhaps with some relevant equipment, or someone with more responsibility. And I suddenly I had another flashed, seeing myself crammed into the back of a truck with a group of soldiers against all regulation, one sitting surreptitiously on my lap and kissing my nose while I gently fondled her through the thick uniform. I thought I'd actually been riding on that convoy, and then elected to wait here instead.
I stood up decidedly and wobbled forward along the road. With each step the baked earth pounded my feet sending a shock all the way up into the back of my head. "Ladies. Gentlemen. I will now show you the way along the road, without triggering any of the mines." I shook off a few restraining hands and raised my arms dramatically, holding my pocket watch awkwardly over my head as the chain dug into the side of my neck. "From you, I only need one thing, a promise that you will stay back and if I do trigger any of the mines, if I do, you will not try to come near it. Or bring me back. Or bring me any medical attention of any sort."
I was speaking over a rising gabble of objections, but I shushed everyone. "I assure you, I'm not joking, and I'm not being noble, well maybe a bit, but not about this."
"That is completely impossible," declaimed a man with a small mustuche, who had been mostly quiet to this point. But the rest were nodding with him. I tried to remember what I'd said, and agreed it didn't sound very sensible. I was about to continue in this vein and hope to pursuade enoguh people, but I glanced at my watch, and the hands were wobbling a bit, but remained unmoved, and I saw it was hopeless.
I looked around for inspiration, and as my eyes fell on a small pile of equipment thrown down at the side of the road by the jeeps, I realised what I could do, and the watch chimed gently as the hands spun rapidly backwards several times, and I smiled.
Half an hour later, I'd abandoned any pretence at pursuading people I was sane, but had scavenged a few near-empty petrol cans from the pile, and adjusted the volumes until they seemed full of a nice fuel vapour and air mix, and strapped them round my body. I couldn't recall exactly what I'd claimed I was trying to do, but the general effect would be that any explosion would become a much worse explosion, and my watch confirmed that my time of death had spun back from several years or decades hence to only a few minutes.
It felt like I was committing suicide, which was not the most ridiculous thing I'd planned when drunk, but I thought it would work pretty well. I began ambling slowly up the road, making sure to cross from side to side to cover the most likely pressure points, and yelling to the villagers to keep back, to stay back, and to not come any closer.
I watched my watch, and the hands ticking slowly backwards in about real time. Ten minutes later they stood less than a minute from midnight, and I began to be careful. I glanced back, and saw most people had followed, but at a very cautious distance. I'd finished my plastic tumbler of beer, and wished I'd thought to bring a bit more, but didn't want to call the woman up now.
I inched forward until I was about ten seconds from midnight, and stopped, and saw the hands slowly start to recede. I turned my body from side to side, starting to move first this way, then that way, until I saw which directins led the hands to recede further, and which one led to them flicking forward like a barometer dropping.
I stopped, and checked my reasoning in my head. The first mine was directly in the direction I was facing, to one side of the dirt track, less than ten meters ahead at a slow walk. As I decided that the hands spun rapidly again, retreating to a comfortably distant future. I looked at the ground where the mine hid. I could try to mark it, or retreat and try to set it off. I realised I probably should have thought about that before I'd come this far, although I wasn't sure if thinking through more details would have persuaded people I was more sane, or less sane.
I glanced back, about to gesture the people to come up to me, when I saw the jeeps approaching again in the distance.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 07:14 am (UTC)