The Watch

James, showered and dressed, sat on the edge of his bed. He slipped on his brown leather shoes, leaned over and opened the nightstand, and withdrew the old wristwatch his father had given him. Stainless steel, not even silver, his father had insisted James take it. They’re all gonna forget. They’ll hear it so often, they’ll be convinced it’s true. He’d been right, of course, and so quickly too. Even before the official ReSync.

The watch’s hands pointed to 6:45am. The letters Sat – Saturday – shown through the small window of the watch’s face. 

Don’t you forget. 

He wound the watch as he did every morning and carefully set it back in the drawer.

At breakfast, his wife Mariann asked, “But why do we have to say it still?”

“Because we agreed.”

“But there’s no reason to say the actual word anymore.” Mariann paused. “We’ve been doing this for 10 years, and, frankly, I feel awful saying it.”

James knelt next to the dining room table, holding the rug back to reveal the hardwood floor. Hash marks. Hundreds of them at this point.

James moved the knife blade back and forth seven times.

“I’m not even sure why we’re doing this anymore,” his wife sighed, standing over him. She leaned over, grabbed both of their coffee cups off the dining room table and walked them to the sink. 

“Saturday,” James said looking directly at his wife’s pinched face. “It’s Saturday, November 15, 2042.”

And it was Saturday, and it wasn’t Saturday. It would’ve been Saturday. But Saturday and Sunday had been eliminated with the Progeny Safeguard Mandate. James – and his wife and everyone else – hadn’t had a day off in a decade. 

James preferred to walk to the school, disinterested in riding in vehicles these days. Briefcase in hand, he headed down the driveway along the rotting cedar fence, past the shed. He looked across the field toward the river. He ought to go fishing. He used to fish, of course. With his father when he was alive, then on his own. He didn’t have time for that anymore.  

  He arrived at school, where he had taught history for 27 years. Well, he had taught there for 27 years if you count the ReSync years. That’s where the ReSync caused confusion for some. One of the compensations of ReSync was that everyone over the age of 31 gained ten years back. If there were no weekends, then there had been no weekends, and that was two days, times 52 weeks, times 10 years, which would be 1,040 days, which would be 2.849315068493151 etc. years. But that was too many numbers, and rounding to three wouldn’t compensate. So, under Progeny Safeguard, all qualified citizens became ten years younger.

James had been 39 the year of the mandate, but on the day of the ReSync, he turned 29. There were many who attached themselves readily to their new ages. 21 again! 25! But James had not felt 29. He couldn’t ignore his heart-rate walking up hills, that his lower back, which had just started to ache, still ached. He gained ten years back and lost the ability to explain why he suffered.

James was 39 now, and James was 49 now. He took blood-pressure medications. He took muscle-relaxers for his back that, on occasion, went out entirely. His left knee bothered him when he took the stairs.

James had only worked at the school 17 years, and James had worked at the school for 27 years. And James was not close to retirement in either case. He had gained ten years back, and he had lost ten years of experience, of seniority, of self-assuredness.

“Please check your CellMail this morning,” the principal’s voice came through the school intercom. “We will be running an alternate schedule.”

James opened his brief case, pulled his CellPad from its pocket, and slid it into its desk stand. He had 42 messages. 

Emergency Pep Assembly. 

He felt the heat in his face, his chest tighten.

Of course, this was not the first Emergency Pep Assembly. There had been many Emergency Pep Assemblies in the beginning. Fewer and fewer over the decade as they had changed the language, called it science, cancelled media, and publicly shamed naysayers.

It was Saturday, and it was not Saturday. And most had long accepted the latter. Most had simply forgotten.

James had not forgotten, but he had mostly accepted it. Afterall, he came to work every day. He didn’t take days off. He never referred to Ireland’s Bogside Massacre as “Bloody Sunday”. His father had played that old U2 song, and he’d made James watch Weekend at Bernies and that other noir piece, almost a century old now. But James didn’t secretly store those antiquated files. Yes, he’d been tempted to hold onto one calendar. A real one, not a photograph hosted on the dark web’s DigiHist. Maybe one day he’d be allowed to teach it in history, to let the students hold it in their hands. To remind the students what had been. Undeniable proof. But he’d burned his calendars and his school planners. So, he accepted it. 

He just hadn’t forgotten. Ten years ago, the week had included a Saturday and a Sunday.

James closed his brief case, locked his classroom door, and walked toward the gym. He waved at the band director, Ms. Fielding, who nodded at him. 

It was like this on Emergency Pep Assembly mornings. Quiet, solemn. Who would it be? He was certain it wouldn’t be Ms. Fielding. She was the secretary of their Union, which ensured the teachers kept to the letter of the law in language, attire, action, and curriculum. He’d served on the Soc-Med Committee for one year in the beginning, monitoring posts. Union service was mandatory, and he certainly didn’t want to be President. He’d never turned anyone in for their memes even when he knew, because he was a history teacher after all, they had pro-weekend roots. The squirrel. The flying cat. The baby in the swing punching her fists. That old movie star who played Jay Gatsby holding out his martini glass. It’d been decades, but he remembered what they used to say. 

The student body had already assembled. 

On Emergency Pep Assembly mornings, the students were ushered straight off the bus and into the gym. Junior Peers on the left and Senior Peers on the right. Calling them Junior and Senior was misleading, the English teachers had once argued. After all, the Junior Peers were freshman and sophomores, and the Senior Peers were juniors and seniors. But even the English teachers eventually accepted the misnomers, as “lower classmen” and “upper classmen” were clearly an assault against the students. 

“Good morning, James,” Presley May said as she passed him on the way to the stage. Presley had been his student the year before as a junior. As a senior, she had been elected to DMB President. 

The move from Associated Student Body to Decision-Making Body had been five years ago. It made sense to change the name, as the students were in charge of most staffing – the hirings and firings—with the administration and union merely providing the signatures. The DMB worked with the district office on budgets. There were three fast food counters in the school cafeteria now. The students still needed 24 credits to graduate, but the curriculum committees required DMB approval.

 James sat in his assigned seat, all of the staff in alphabetical order in the center of the gym, facing the stage. Principal Mike sat in his chair, placed just below the podium. The stage was reserved for the DMB leadership.

Principal Mike stood, turned on the microphone pinned to his chest. “Good morning and welcome to this year’s first Emergency Pep Assembly.” There were no cheers, no cheerleaders, no skits or dancers. 

The audience quieted, the teachers shuffled. Who would it be?

James spotted Mr. Chapman, the trigonometry teacher, in the front row. He felt certain it wouldn’t be him or anyone else in the math department. They were the first to agree that weekend-less weeks were clearly supported by the data. 

“365 is divisible by 5,” he remembered the algebra teacher arguing prior to the ReSync. “Right,” James had said, “but I’m arguing that having two days of rest is necessary and 

desired.” 

“That’s an unfalsifiable claim, James,” one of the science teachers had countered. 

“I can make it falsifiable.” James turned to Mrs. Harmon, the PE teacher. “Surely, there’ve been studies about the benefits of rest in a weekday.”

Mrs. Harmon, chewing her food, had nodded, held up a finger. But before she could answer, the algebra teacher scoffed.

“Oh, here we go,” he laughed. “I can’t wait to hear who did this study.”

Mrs. Harmon opened her mouth to speak. But, upon noting the raised eyebrows of her colleagues, she simply took another bite of her sandwich.

Now, Mrs. Harmon sat, back rigid, looking forward. James wondered if it could be her. She’d been feeling increasingly exhausted, she’d intimated years ago. She hadn’t forgotten back then. He could only imagine her fatigue. PE every day, and she coached three sports after school. If not her, maybe it was someone else in the PE department.

James eyed the English teachers. They had been pro-weekend hold-outs. The word existed, after all. As did Saturday and Sunday. They could point to the words and their definitions on the screen. Even when the words evolved, the English department railed against it. Those were not, in fact, the definitions. But then Websters changed the definitions:

Saturday (noun) – obscene: A pejorative term for a mother whose child had died in an automobile accident, implying ignorance, negligence, cruelty, and abuse. 

Sunday (noun) – obscene: A pejorative term for a child who died in an automobile accident.

Weekend (noun) – obscene: A pejorative term for an automobile accident that resulted in the death of a child, implying grotesque images of gore and suffering. 

To use these words was to advocate for the death of a child. The vocabulary deemed violent, there existed no means to argue against the ReSync. So, what was there to say? Soon after, these three words offended the English department more than anyone else. No, it wasn’t Mrs. Perkins or Mr. Starling or Ms. McDowell.

Principal Mike gestured to the stage. “Please stand as we welcome our Decision-Making Body President Presley May.”

The audience stood.

Presley made her way from her seat on stage to the podium. She raised a gavel and struck the sound block five times. The audience sat. “The Decision-Making Body welcomes you. I Presley May, president of the DMB, have the honor of presiding over the Emergency Assembly. It is my duty to convey that the DMB was informed of a violation of the Code of Staff Discretion. The evidence was brought forward. The DMB voted. In honor of CSD 102, we release James Handbrige from his contract.” 

A rush sounded in his ears, his face flushed. Well, here it was, though the shame surprised him. 

Presley looked straight at him. “Please report to the office.”

James stood. He dared a quick scan of his colleagues. They did not meet his eyes. Not even Mrs. Harmon. Had she forgotten? Had they all forgotten?

Principal Mike was already in his office. James entered and shut the door behind him. They had worked together for 20 (or 10) years. They were both teaching at the time of the ReSync. They’d had beers on Friday nights, when a Friday night meant something.  

James pulled his keys from his pocket, set them on the desk next to the small, square calendar. Monday, November 15, 2042. He thought of his wife. He felt hollow. 

Principal Mike eyed James, then said, “Several students came forward.” He paused, waiting for James to admit or explain. “You had them looking on… what was it ….” He looked down at the notepad before him, tapped it with his pen. “DigiHist?” Principal Mike set his pen on the notepad. 

James wouldn’t deny it.

“Looking at photographs of—” Principal Mike held up both hands to make air quotes—”‘historic’ calendars.” His mouth quirked. “It’s been scientifically and mathematically proven. Five days, that’s it. The 7-day thing… it doesn’t even make sense. We have a prescribed curriculum for a reason.”

James sighed, ran both hands through his hair. “And I use that too.”

Principal Mike leaned forward. “Joey Franklin is the one who came forward, but Kevin Feldt, Rierson Smith, and Shayna Taylor confirmed it. It made Kevin very uncomfortable. You may have noticed Rierson hasn’t been coming to school. Her parents want the district to pay for her counseling.”

James looked down at his hands. He’d made it ten years.

“Can you imagine how they must’ve felt? The historical inaccuracy is one thing, but the vulgarity of it. It’s an assault against the children.” Principal Mike leaned back in his seat, shaking his head. “It’s filicidist.” 

At this, James sat up. “You’re calling me a filicidist?”

“Well, you know I don’t think that,” Principal Mike demurred. “But you know we can’t have you teaching here after this. What you’re showing them—”

“Is the truth,” James interrupted. “It’s history.”

Principal Mike looked away. When he looked back at James, his voice was firm. “The only history that exists is the history that is in the DMB-approved curriculum.”

“Mike—”

“Those fantasy two days are gone, James. And they are gone because the children were dying. Forcing the students to see what we working adults promoted for so many decades, and for what? Free time?”

James gestured toward the desk calendar. “But you remember.”

“That’s enough,” Principal Mike said. 

“This was never about dying children.”

“Look at the science, James.”

“You know I’m not a filicidist.”

Of course, James didn’t want the sons and daughters of this great nation to die. He just wanted weekends. Or, maybe, at this point, he simply wanted people to remember. To understand there once had been weekends and that they were abolished on lies and faulty logic. 

Distracted driving, drinking and driving. The children were dying. And it tended to happen most often on the weekends when the kids spent more time in vehicles.  

So they got rid of the weekends.

To save the children, they said.

“Their deaths have decreased.” Principal Mike folded his arms across his chest. “Look at the data.”

Of course, James had heard this before, so he said what he always said, “Children still die. They just don’t die on Saturdays and Sundays anymore because the days don’t exist.” 

Principal Mike slammed his fist on the desk. “You are out of line using those two words in this office.”

James ignored the outburst. “The numbers are statistically insignificant.” 

“Statistics? What do you know about statistics? You can’t even divide 365 by 5. You’re in here using offensive, archaic terminology. I can only imagine what you’re saying in class. You think you’re some kind of watchman of history.” Principal Mike jabbed his pen toward James. “Your history is outdated.”

And what was there to say?

As James walked out of the office, he heard the secretaries whisper. He heard the term “child killer”. Plain as day.

He walked the empty halls, for they were between classes. One boy came out of the restroom, saw James, and stepped back into the restroom.

James’s classroom was empty. His students had been taken to the library and would be taught by a substitute. His classroom was unsafe, a trigger for the children who would forever suffer PTSD from being taught by someone who secretly hated them and wished them dead. James packed up the picture of his wife, the regional board certificate, the three degrees, and a box of PreSync baseball cards.

He walked out of the school and dumped all but the picture of his wife in the dumpster. He knew he would never teach again after being labeled a filicidist.

He stopped off at the bar on the corner, ordered a pint, and stared at the wall-sized television screen. 

“There’s no way they would get rid of compasses,” one man said at the bar.

“I heard it. Compasses and maps.”

“They’d never do that.” The man took a sip of his beer.

“There’s a lot of kids dying in New Hampshire.”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

The other man shrugged. “That’s just what I heard.” 

James finished his beer, planning how he’d explain his Vote-Out to his wife. 

The house smelled like paint when he walked in. His wife was not in the kitchen, but he could hear her singing down the hall, her voice endearingly off-pitch. Then he noticed the dining room table set diagonally, just a bit. And the carpet was gone. She’d moved the table and removed the carpet. He set his brief case down and knelt where he had just that morning. Right here, right where he was sure they’d been, there was nothing. No hash marks. Every last one of them, sanded smooth and stained. 

He placed his fingertips where he had carved every Saturday and Sunday. Over 1,000 marks gone. And he didn’t know how many exactly. He hadn’t memorized them. Today was Saturday, and tomorrow would be Sunday. But he didn’t know exactly how many had passed.

“Mariann.” James stood, but too fast. His back cried out. “Damn it.”

She came into the kitchen. “You’re home late.”

“I’m home early.” He gestured at the floor. “What did you do?”

“Mike called, so I thought you’d be home right away.”

“Mariann, where are the marks?”

“I was going to wait, but…” She said, “We both knew this would happen sooner or later.” He didn’t know if she meant his Vote-Out or her sanding away the hash marks.

James looked around the kitchen as if something else held the evidence he’d been trying to hold onto. He didn’t want to be angry.

She stepped forward and gently touched his arm. “It’s easier this way.”

Mariann walked past him, left him standing in the kitchen, staring at the floor where the marks had been. 

He could figure this out. Saturday, November 15, 2042. Over 1,000 marks. But how many exactly? Ten years. He could recalculate. Ten years, 52 weeks, 52 five-day chunks. 520 chunks. 1,040 two-day weekends. Right? Is that how he’d have to do it? It wasn’t exactly ten years. It was just over. He could count the weeks. 520-plus chunks. He could figure it out.

Or he could start over. Not in the kitchen, not in the house. Out in the shed. Behind the tool box. Up the window frame. Mariann didn’t go out there much. Obviously, she didn’t want to be reminded. He could count the hash marks from today, add tomorrow, which would be Sunday. He could start from today. He could start over.

James gingerly lowered himself into the dining room chair and let his head fall into his hands. But what of the previous 520-plus weeks? How could he ever know for certain? It wasn’t exact. It wasn’t for-sure.

“Saturday,” he said. That didn’t make him a filicidist. He didn’t want to kill the children. 

Today was Saturday, November 15, 2042. But it was only Saturday to him. The rest had forgotten. Or they’d finally just given up remembering.

He slid the chair back from the table, stood up, and walked to his room. He removed the watch from the end table. He stared at the Sat. Tomorrow it would say SUN, and he would wind the watch. And he would’ve scratched a line in the wood floor.

He slipped the watch into his pocket.

James did not tell Mariann where he was going. He simply walked out the front door, taking the porch steps one at a time to avoid another muscle spasm. He followed the driveway along the cedar fence. At the gate, he cut into the field and walked to the shed. He pulled back the hinge and opened the door. 

He removed the watch from his pocket and lay it on the workbench just under the windowsill. He took the small hatchet from the wall behind him, then leaned across the workbench to the window frame. He pushed the metal blade against the wood. One for today, Saturday. 

James stepped back. 

He looked down at the watch. The hands pointed to 2:17pm. The letters Sat stared up at him, and tomorrow they would remind him it was SUN. He could carve the second mark now, or he could sneak out tomorrow morning before coffee. He didn’t want to lie to Mariann.

It’s easier this way. How long till Mariann forgot?

Tomorrow would be Sunday. Or it would be Tuesday. 

Everyone would be going to work because it’s Tuesday. He would eventually find another job. He’d have to. But it would never be in a classroom, never with history, never with young people and the hope and the spark. 

Don’t you forget, his dad had said, but now there was no one left to remind.

It would be easier to go to work on a Tuesday than a Sunday.

He glanced at the hash mark in the window frame and looked down again at the watch. He brought the hatchet back and slammed the blade against the small glass face. James slammed the hatchet down again and again, seven times.

He stared down at the mess of glass and metal. He hung up the hatchet.

He swept what used to be the gears and the hands and the face across the workbench into an open drawer. Then he closed it.

“Monday, November 15, 2042.” It’s easier this way.

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