HOW TO WIND UP A WATCH

PREAMBLE TO THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW TO WIND UP A WATCH

Think for a while about this: when you receive a timepiece as a gift, you receive a little flowering inferno, a chain of roses, a dungeon full of air. You are not only given the watch, a wish for a happy birthday, and hope it lasts long because it's a quality brand, made in Switzerland and powered by ruby crystals; you are not only given that tiny stonecutter which you will tie at your wrist and carry along with you everywhere you go. They have given you (they know not, what is most dreadful is the fact that they know not), they have given you a fragile and precarious new fragment of your self, something that is yours but not part of your body; something that you must latch onto your body with that wristband, like a desperate little arm clinging for life to your wrist. You are furthermore given the need to wind it up each and every day, the duty of winding it up so it can still be a timepiece; you are given the obsession to notice what the time exactly is on watch shop window displays, on the radio, on the telephone. You are given the fear of losing it, of the watch being stolen, of the watch falling to the ground and breaking. You are given the brand of the watch, and the sureness that it is a better brand than others; you are given the tendency to compare your watch to other watches. You are not given a watch; you are the gift, you are given, offered, to the watch for its birthday.


HOW TO WIND UP A WATCH

There, in the bottom, lies Death; but fear not. Hold the watch in one hand, use the fingers of the other to pinch the winding-up key, and turn it gently. Now another lapse opens; the trees unravel their leaves, the sailboats race in regattas, time unfolds like a fan, filling itself with itself, and from it spring the air, the breezes of the earth, the shadow of a lady, the scent of freshly-made bread.

What else do you want? What else do you want? Latch it quickly to your wrist, let it throb freely, imitate it full of longing. Fear rusts the springs, everything that could have been attained but was forgotten is corroding the veins of the watch, poisoning the cold blood in its ruby hearts. And there, in the bottom, lies Death, if we do not make haste and arrive before and understand that it no longer matters.


Julio Cortázar
Englished by Sandra Dermark on the 4th of Germinal, MMXVIII

CHAPTER THREE: OF SOMETHING

Chapter III: On Something

It is said by someone that there is no fixed something or other between the something, the something else, and another something, but that all these things should be done generally before something takes place. François Rabelais, however, thinks that anything may take place at any time, for something does not care for something or other. Now, with a young girl there are three sorts of something:

• The nominal something
• The throbbing something
• The touching something

1. When a girl touches only the something of her lover with her own, but does not herself do anything, it is called the "nominal something."
2. When a girl, setting aside her bashfulness a little, wishes to touch the something that is pressed into her something, and with that something moves her lower something, but not the upper one, it is called the "throbbing something."
3. When a girl touches her lover's something with her something else, and having shut her something or other, places her somethings on those of her lover, it is called the "touching something."
Other authors describe four other kinds of somethings:

• The straight something
• The bent something
• The turned something
• The pressed something

1. When the somethings of two lovers are brought into direct contact with each other, it is called a "straight something."
2. When the somethings of two lovers are bent toward each other, and when so bent, something takes place, it is called a "bent something."
3. When one of them turns up the something or other of the other by holding something and something else, and then something, it is called a "turned something."
4. Lastly, when the lower something is pressed with much force, it is called a "pressed something."

There eatly pressed something," which is effected by taking hold of the lower something between two somethings, and then after touching it with something else, pressing it with great force with something or other.

As regards something, a wager may be laid as to which will get hold of the somethings of the other first. If the woman loses, she should pretend to cry, should keep her lover off by shaking her somethings, and turn away from him and dispute with him, saying, "Let another wager be laid."

When a man does something to the upper something of a woman, while she in return does something else to his lower something or other, it is called the "something of the upper something."

When one of them takes both the somethings of the other between his or her own, it is called "a clasping something." A woman, however, takes this kind of something only from a man who has no something or other. And on the occasion of this something, if one of them touches the something, the something else, and the something or other of the other, it is called the "fighting of the something." In the same way, the pressing of the somethings of the one against the something else of the other, is to be practiced.

There is a verse on this subject as follows:

"Whatever things may be done by one of the lovers to the other, the same should be returned by the other; that is, if the woman does something to him he should do something to her in return."