Chapter 1

The Adventures of a Time Travel Watch

The Adventures of a Time Travel Watch and its users, written as a fictional Novel by me; an old man with a pen, but taken, with a little salt, from a series of diaries found in an old trunk purchased at a Self-Storage business auction.

The business had been the eyesore of the city for many years ... but someone had been paying the taxes and minimal upkeep on the grounds.

State Capital City, having spread like a cloud of locust over the central portion of the State had annexed our little town. Developers had torn down and rebuilt the village in the manner of their desires. The Self-Storage building, huge, ancient, once red brick and granite, had deteriorated to simply huge, brooding and in the way.

As such buildings do, it suffered from a fire of natural causes fifteen years before the sale. The taxes continued to be paid. The developers finally won their day in court five years ago and court ordered "Intent to Demolish" notices had been published in major and minor publications in cyberspace for four years.

Last year, a team of attorneys from every alphabet branch of the Federation of North America government descended on the town and insisted that the building be emptied of all remaining objects, regardless of condition, and those objects to be sold at Public Auction. This year, February First, 2116, the auction was held in a blinding blizzard. The locals stayed home, I attended for the express purpose of informational observation; My Blog. The Federation Lawyers attended en masse and a huge bidding war ensued. The village, autonomous in government, benefitted enormously.

The auction over, the attorneys loaded their booty in assorted Federation vehicles, and left. I bought the trunk I was sitting on for a dollar, called a friend and we struggled the heavy trunk to my vehicle. He helped me carry it up to my writers attic where we jimmied the lock. I threw back the lid.

"Old books!" he exclaimed with disgust. "Of course ... only you." He helped me turn the trunk, spill out the books and left. I was left with nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of old books, still smelling of smoke from the fire fifteen years before.

'Only you, ' was cryptic, my book cases full, I had nowhere to sit ... the chairs were full of books awaiting shelves. The shelves were awaiting the steel beams for floor reinforcement ... the steel beams were awaiting sufficient funds. I had a little space on my desk, but it was where I sat at my ancient computer and posted my blog and the novels I conjured out of whole cloth. I picked up the oldest looking book, A Diary: Stopwatch.

As I read, I realized that I had purchased the very thing the government was looking for: They will be back.

As I read, the violent blizzard raging across the state, I became more and more aware of the dangers present in possessing the physical evidence of a truly remarkable adventure. When I started reading, I could imagine the chagrin of an adolescent unable to wear a watch, or, for that matter, be near a windup. The sheer idea that a person had to live their life commanded by an object attached to their wrist was confusing. The wrist, in this case, led to a mysterious object; pocket watch. I turned on my ancient machine, connected to Cyberspace.gov, and began a search for pocket watch. As events turned out, the search was a serious mistake. Evidently 'pocket watch' was a flagged term.

A pocket watch (or pocketwatch) is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design, trench watches, were used by the military. Pocket watches generally have an attached chain to allow them to be secured to a waistcoat, lapel, or belt loop, and to prevent them from being dropped. Watches were also mounted on a short leather strap or fob, when a long chain would have been cumbersome or likely to catch on things. This fob could also provide a protective flap over their face and crystal. Women's watches were normally of this form, with a watch fob that was more decorative than protective. Chains were frequently decorated with a silver or enamel pendant, often carrying the arms of some club or society, which by association also became known as a fob. Ostensibly "practical" gadgets such as a watch winding key, vesta case or a cigar cutter also appeared on watch chains, although usually in an overly decorated style. Also common are fasteners designed to be put through a buttonhole and worn in a jacket or waistcoat, this sort being frequently associated with and named after train conductors.Cyberspace.gov

As inventions go, time is surely one of the longest lasting. But does time predate the watch?

I left my 'computer' powered up for I shall certainly need the search mode again. That, too, proved to be a second or third mistake, if one considers the purchase of my seat after the auction, the first mistake.

With the snow piling up and the streets impassible, I violated the law and burned downed wood in my ancient implement called a potbelly stove.