Joe, Watch Salesman, 36

This clock stopped on 2pm
Saturday, December 6th
Two years ago

I want to tell you a story
About Saturday, December 6th 2pm

It's a story
About time

The beggar outside understands time
And for a nickel
He'll give you a philosophy on it

I don't need any nickels
For my time

On Saturday, December 6th
I went out to buy my son
The ninja turtle van he wanted
And a car crashed into the side of my van

The van I use for work

And that particular day
I had just gotten a delivery
Of the Axxon 480
One of the finest watches
In the world

The car nearly split the van in two
And the Axxons were everywhere

The entire crash site
Was covered in time

Little hands
Big hands
Still ticking

They didn't write that in the report
But there was the distinct sound
Of ticking

As for me--

I was 1974
I was 1987
I was 1995
I was 2004

I was last year
I was next year
I was delineated

I was my mother making her way home
From the watch store
When my Dad owned it
On the night it snowed
And he told her to stay

She had to stay and close the shop

They said she would have hit the tree so fast that...

I still have her watch from that night
December 6th
The big and little hands
Frozen

It's still fogged up
From the cold
And the ice

I have my grandfather's watch
That he wore to Normandy
Frozen the minute he hit the water
And the bullet lodged itself
In his side

Frozen

And I have my father's watch...

Still ticking

A life full of dents
And detriment
And dirtiness
And damage

And still ticking

And when the car hit the van
And I felt my body
Fly out through the windshield

I have to tell you
That all I saw was time

And I thought it would look like water
But it doesn't

It looks like fire

And in that fire
I heard my father

I was lying on the ground
Thinking I was going to die
On the same day as my mother
And leave behind my wife
And my son

And I heard my father
I heard him walk through the time
Past the fire
Right up beside me

I felt him pull the time around me
And cover me in it
Like a blanket

He stopped it
My father stopped time

A few weeks later
I got out of the hospital
Not nearly brand new
But not dead either

I told my wife what happened
And she became very spiritual about it
I'm not a spiritual man
I don't think it was the spirit of my father
With me that day

It doesn't change what I believe
About him or my past
Or my childhood

But it does change
What I think
Of time