The Watchman
You are at a dinner party, and you are spectacularly boring.
To your left, a woman named “Aspen” describes digging wells in Peru. To your right, your host, Mark, a man who wears linen shirts with un-ironic confidence, is detailing the finer points of restoring antique furniture. He speaks of dovetail joints and the unique patina of 19th-century oak.
You spent last weekend googling whether pizza boxes go in recycling. You're still not sure.
Your contribution so far: vigorous nodding and "Wow, fascinating." The silence swings your way. Ten expectant eyes. This is the moment.
Your Mouth clears its throat.
"That's really something, Mark. For me, it's vintage watches. I restore old mechanical movements. A dying art, really."
Aspen’s well-digging exploits in Peru are suddenly ancient history. You have, against all odds, become interesting.
Mark's eyes light up with kindred spirit recognition. "No kidding? A horologist! My late father's '68 Omega Speedmaster hasn't run in a decade. It's the watch they wore on the moon, you know."
You did not know.
"I'd be honored if you'd take a look. Just to see what you think."
You are screaming internally, a high-frequency wail of pure terror. Your Mouth, however, smiles slow and confident. "I'd be delighted."
Mark's dead father's moon watch was now your problem.
Two days later, a $6,000 Omega sits on your kitchen table next to a stack of unpaid bills and a now marshmallow-less box of Lucky Charms.
First, you order a $19.99 Amazon Prime’d watch repair kit, BYNIIUR branded, of course. The tweezers are comically oversized for precision work, and the screwdrivers feel like they might snap if you look at them wrong. They want a five star review.
Next comes YouTube: six hours watching a silent, steady-handed Swiss man dismantle movements with thousands of dollars of tools.
Finally, the moment of truth. You open the watch with your special rubber-ball case opener. It makes a terrible, doom-sealing squeak as the back comes off.
Inside sits a tiny, beautiful, silent city of gears and jewels. It is perfect, pristine, and hopelessly broken.
Fueled by equal parts panic and hubris, you decide to poke something. Just a gentle, exploratory nudge with your thinnest screwdriver on a small coiled spring.
With the sound of a gnat’s sneeze, the spring—the soul of the watch, you’ll later learn it’s called a hairspring—launches itself out of its setting. It catches the light for a single, brilliant instant before disappearing forever into the fibers of your shag carpet.
Whoops.
Admitting to this is not an option. Admitting this would involve shame, and your Mouth has already established that you are a person beyond such petty concerns. You are what you now know to be called a Horologist. A Restorer of Things.
So you pivot.
You go back online and order a cheap, plastic, battery-powered quartz movement for twelve dollars. It is the kind of mechanism that powers wall clocks in dental offices. When it arrives, you perform a grotesque surgery. You gut the beautiful, dead Swiss movement from its housing, a symphony of gears and springs falling onto your table like the innards of a metallic bird. You then cram the plastic replacement inside. It doesn’t quite fit. A small glob of super glue solves that.
You screw the back on and return the watch to Mark.
He is ecstatic.
"It works! Listen to that tick! My God, you're a genius! It sounds a bit more... energetic than I remember, but it keeps perfect time! I can't thank you enough!"
Word spreads through the neighborhood like wildfire. At a barbecue, a woman you barely know approaches you with a small, velvet-wrapped object. Her eyes are full of hope and trust.
"I heard you're the guy to see about watches," she says. "This was my grandmother's Cartier..."