half-hunter · 1908 · railway clerk
hung from a man who timed trains for forty-one years and was never himself late. he died in 1949; the watch went into a tin with two buttons and a key, and stayed there until the tin was opened in 2003 by someone who did not know whose hand had wound it.
it now gains seven minutes a day. it does not know the trains are gone. you can set it against time at noon and by supper it is a small ambitious thing, hurrying you toward somewhere you are not going.
field-note · the sub-second dial still beats. the second hand was lost in 1962.
watch · clock room · hour 12 · hourglass · radiator valve