THE POCKET WATCH

Written by: Kelsey DeHart
Submitted by: Connie Yetter

This beautiful brass circle, formally creating a lump in your pocket and awareness in your mind, is now stuffed in a drawer of knicks and knacks.

Once in constant use and ticking wildly, the object now lays still and motionless, only allowing one to see the time in which it died. The lifeless pocket watch that was so useful in tick-tocking, tock-ticking, and telling time, is now only a reminder of past times. Only a reminder of something that was never fixed, only a reminder of time moving-on and catching-up.

When occasionally rummage through the junk drawer and coming across the old clock, one may think for a moment, "Surely a dying man is a pocket watch!" He may have entered this world young, innocent, and careless, but time has certainly made its impression!

As the pocket watch slowly collects dust on its insides and its gears wear down, we do the same. Bones become brittle and thoughts become cluttered, and we are reminded of the little time we have left by this very pocket watch. When young we relied so dearly on this watch, eyeing it so often to keep life on-track and timeliness correct, but little did we know its age was increasing as was ours.

While the clock ticked along, our hearts beat in sync. The clock lived its life by telling time as we lived ours by regarding it.

It was an average day, when the clock suddenly stopped. Was there no more time to tell, or was it solely worn to its end? When our time comes, will this be the result? Will our bodies lie in a drawer of knicks and knacks as well? Will we be forgotten and neglected and have no further use? Maybe the pocket watch was always a symbol of life; as time caught up to it, time was chasing after us with intentions of doing the same. Perhaps the pocket watch is the idea of life as irrelevant. Time may have mattered so greatly in the time of hustle and bustle days but now as we grow old and tiresome, the meaning of life may follow the same pattern.

If a pocket watch can die and become so meaningless in reality, is life becoming meaningless as well? Perhaps an open watch will reveal much more; the motionless gears so filthy and worn are a reminder of lost innocence and youth; life filling with metaphoric dust of sins and problems. Is it now cluttered with so many thoughts and times that is has become as old and futile as a pocket watch?

Maybe the time left on the clock: one-fifty three, is a significant time for death as well. Maybe the broken pocket watch only foreshadows what is to come. May we assume the pocket watch is warning! We must de-clutter our lives and make something of ourselves before we fall too far into insignificance. We must not have the same fate as the dear, once vital pocket watch, we must not grow any older nor stop ticking.

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