11.25.25: The Broken Watch

A broken watch is useless for time, but it still carries weight. I once found my grandfather’s old one, hands stuck at 4:17. I never fixed it. That frozen moment became something else, a relic of when it stopped. Maybe he was drinking coffee. Maybe walking outside. We’ll never know. Watches are different from other objects. They don’t just tell time, they hold it. Even broken, they remind you that moments can be captured, even accidentally. Sometimes I look at it and think: maybe it’s not broken at all. Maybe it’s just holding on to one perfect second forever.