“I don’t talk about it,” said the old man. “Painful subject. Distant past.”
The younger man began to apologise hurriedly. “Should never have asked… most regrettable… Forgive the intrusion…” He gathered his things and prepared to leave, but the old man went on.
“It’s an innocent looking object, isn’t it? Watch and chain. Old-fashioned nowadays. Worth – well – not very much. Especially with the dent in it, and so on.”
He looked down at the fractured glass of the watch. “Horse’s hoof did that, you know. My grandfather’s watch. I knew I’d inherit it. One day. So I reckoned it’d be in order to borrow it. In advance, as you might say. To impress a young lady. Did impress her, too. She held it up to hear the chime. But it slipped out of her pretty fingers. Pity we were on top of the omnibus at the time. Open-topped, they were, in those days. Watch fell right out, down to the ground. Straight under the coal merchant’s cart. Great big feet those horses had. Well, I left her, ran down the stairs two at a time. Raced back down the road. And there was the watch. Buckled. Glass broken. Got a thrashing from Grandfather, I did. That young lady – she found someone else – chap with his own watch, I suppose. Unhappy memories. But when my mind wanders… Still works, you know, the watch. It’s measured all the time between then and now. But as I say. I never talk about it.”

Kathy Sharp is the author of fabulous fantasy novel Isle of Larus http://tinyurl.com/olfyskv and the exciting sequel Sea of Clouds http://amzn.to/1wYCPH0