I pried it from his cold, dead hands.
That’s the real truth of how I got the watch. I tell people that he willed it to me, but the truth is that when I found him there, already stiff and cold, with that watch clasped tightly in his hands, I pulled his fists apart so hard that I broke three of his fingers.
The watch didn’t care. All it cared about was finding its new host. And it had.
My grandfather had loved that watch in life, but I doubt he ever understood what it really was. He called it his countdown watch; claimed it had been given to him as thanks by a witch who he rescued during the war.
He said that the watch told him how much time he had left, and when the hand circled back around to the number at the top–ninety-four–he’d die. Nobody in the family had believed him, of course, but when he finally did die–at the age of ninety-four no less– that watch had stopped right along with his heart.
And when I wrenched it from his dead hands, I watched in wonder as the little golden nine and four melted, wriggled around like little golden worms before rearranging themselves into a new number–seventy-six. The ninety-four ticks on the side melted into a pool, and remade themselves into seventy-six.
I watched, breathless, as the hand slowly turned a third of the way around the face. I understood. I would die at seventy-six. I had fourty-nine years left and not a minute more.
What I didn’t realize is that I could lose years.
The first time I realized the true power of the watch, it was completely by accident. I was sitting alone in my living room, staring at the way the sunlight glinted off the gold surface, feeling the pleasant weight of the metal in my hand, when I began to drift into the most pleasant kind of daydreams–those about a woman.
I had met Samantha at a coffee shop two months before when she bumped into me and covered me in latte. We were friends, and she had made it clear that’s all we would ever be. But my heart refused to acknowledge the reality of my situation, as hearts often do, and I found myself wishing that she would just give me a chance. Then she would see.
It was at this moment that the watch suddenly grew very warm in my hands, and as I ran my fingers over the surface, my thumb found a little button that had never been there before. What else could I do? I pushed it.
My heart stopped; the air vanished from my lungs. My muscles stiffened, and I fell from my chair onto the floor. I coughed and sprayed blood on the floor. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. There was blood on my lips, but other than that, no physical evidence of what had just happened to me.
I stared, dumbstruck, at the watch. I counted three times. The hand had moved two ticks. I had gone from having fourty-nine years left to fourty-seven. I barely had time to process what had happened before the knock came at my door. It was Samantha, of course, ready to profess her love to me.
Six months later we were married, and I had barely looked at the watch since that day she had come to my house. In that time I was well and truly happy. For a while anyway.
Within a year Samantha was pregnant. I had always wanted to be a father, and was ready to welcome my child into the world with open arms. Fate, however, had other plans, as it often does. Samantha awoke one morning during month eight to a terrible cramping in her belly. When I pulled the blanket off of her, I saw the blood on the sheets. We rushed to the hospital, but there was nothing to be done.
The baby was dead, but Samantha still had to birth it. The doctors medically induced labor to get it out of her. After that, Samantha just wasn’t the same. She sank into depression, and pulled me down right alongside her. It was then that my thoughts returned to the watch. I dug out the little metal tea tin I kept it in, and held it in my hand. It knew what I wanted.
The heat was more powerful than I remembered, and this time it was accompanied by a low buzzing sound. Like flies on a corpse. The button appeared in the same place, however, and once again, I pushed it.
The watch fell from my hands as I collapsed to the floor. My vision vanished into a swirling cloud of blackness, and my head swam in a sea of pain. My heart swelled, throbbed violently against my chest. The pain lasted less than a minute, though it felt much longer.
When I arose, blood leaking from my eyes and the corners of my lips, I saw that the watch had moved five ticks.
I washed my face, and went to find Samantha, to tell her not to worry, that I had a gut feeling that she was pregnant again, that this time everything would be okay. She had barricaded herself in the bathroom, however, as she often did. I called out a few times, but there was no answer. My heart sank.
I put my shoulder to the door and smashed it open. Samantha was in the bathtub, in rose-tinted water, her wrists slit wide open. She was not dead. I called 911, then wrapped her arms up the best I could with our bathroom towels. I cradled her wet head in my arms as I waited for the paramedics to arrive.
When they did, I went along with them to the hospital, though they would not let me ride in the back with her, in case I got in the way. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, however. Samantha sank into a coma. Days turned to weeks, turned, to months, and Samatha’s belly grew.
I went to her hospital bed every day. I knew, of course, what I would name the baby. Samantha if it was a girl, Sam if it was a boy. When the time came, the doctors had to induce labor again. It made me think of our first child, a little girl, and what her life might have been like.
I held Samantha’s hand as the doctor delivered her baby. When its head was out, I saw his face change. The entire room went silent, all except the crying of the baby, and the orders from the doctor to his nurses, now delivered in hushed tones.
Finally, it was over. I did not get a chance to hold my son that day–the doctors carried him away to the NICU ward.
But though I could not hold him, I could see him, twisted little thing that he was. He had no fingers, no toes, just empty stumps. His hair was patchy, and sat about a face with a harelip and a single, glazed over eye situated in his forehead.
As I looked down at him, hooked up to all those machines, I felt no love, only disgust and regret. I had given up five years of my life to watch this nightmare to unfold.
It was then that the watch burned in my pocket. I fished it out and stared at it, glowing strangely under the dim lights of the NICU ward. It knew what I wanted, and I wondered–what happens when you unwish something?
The button appeared, and I pressed it.
My son’s heart monitor flatlined, and I got my five years back.