The 13 Watches

by Will Bailey

Alien technology.

Watch this. For my next trick, I am going to recite the current time by simply glancing at my analog face wristwatch. Rest assured no hidden wires, mechanical trickery or fancy robots with lady voices will be used to aid in this seemingly impossible feat of computational alchemy. You see, the common analog watch uses ancient technology developed by half-blind, soothsaying mystics who couldn’t see the broad side of a barn, let alone look at a tiny clock and tell you how many hours remain until lunchtime. Of course, their strange methods of time telling were thrown out the very second (GET IT?!) digital face time pieces came along, and were soon forgotten. Perhaps this is why grown men and women are reduced to confused bobble-heads when asked to tell time using an analog wrist-watch. I learned this the hard way when I dug mine out of the closet and started wearing it around, unbeknownst to the little fact that I had grown so used to digital that it took me ten minutes just to figure out which one was the big hand. Ironically, this is how I eventually learned to tell time: using intervals of confusion as my main unit of measure. For example, one half hour equals three successive panic attacks as I stare at the baffling artifact on my wrist and try to make sense of the primitive markings. So, without further ado, here is the amazing trick I promised to perform. It is currently….twornty o-five in the morning. Ta-da!

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