The watch hangs from a tarnished brass chain stuck to a rusted nail above his desk. Silver lines the edges of a cracked glass front. It was a gift from his father who in turn, got it from his father and the hands of the clock do not move. He would twist the top occasionally to wind the gears, push the heavy hands forward in a march to future times now gone but would become irritated at the incessant clicking sounds emanating from its soiled belly. No matter where he was within the house, the padded ticks could be heard, the calls to the forcibly forgotten patriarchy of his childhood reverberating off of the walled temples of his inner sanctuary. And so he would let it run out in a slow, mournful death; would refuse to rewind it, practice resistance against its presence and hail glory in its lazy habitation of the nondescript wall with no purpose other than to solidify the silent within its furrowed brow.
His father lived across the country, worked in a job for the state, and they hadn’t spoken in months. The casual conversations rarely took place, the cordial calls or letters gathered dust in that locked basement of the childhood home now sold, the grassy hills now dried and left for crows. The watch represented all time that had passed, all time that would pass, an object imbued with the sorrow of conversations never had, connections never made. A stranger’s presence watching over him as he wrote and went about his day, the frozen mouths of a geist in situ.
Across it glassy face, two words were emblazoned in dark black ink: The Skipper. The captain, the leader, the master of a ship. The skipper. He thinks on this, laughs and shakes his head. The silenced skipper encased within a 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch steel tomb, the functionality of it depending on the winding of the gears by an outside force, the fragility of its face and the mechanical innards in need of care and attention to avoid the severity of coming to a grinding halt. The captain: a leader of well-worn walls and settled, safe seas, white-painted bows and depths of 2 x 4′s and mangled electrical wires. His day has begun, the watch reflects the early morning light, reveals it scratches and divots.
He reaches up, turns it over to hide the face, continues writing.
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