Watchman

 

He tried to work for both sides when he was a college fresher. The troublesome logistics made him choose our side, not peer pressure, or ideology. He was reliable, calm, disinterested; deaf to the leaders’ fiery speeches; and, hardly sympathetic to our grievances or the other camp’s. The leaders and the rank and file went to him. He held their weapon (bicycle chain, hockey stick, cricket bat) while they removed their watch and entrusted him with its safe-keeping. He then retreated to some safe corner on campus, to read; probably Marcus Aurelius or Karl Marx, wisdom for fighters, or maybe, Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. After the brawl, after the last weary curse, he reappeared amongst us, surveyed cuts and bruises, picked out the correct watch from the collection in his cloth bag, handed it over, even to owners with broken wrists and fingers. He faced mild antagonism once when he mixed up the owners of two similar Titan watches, the same but for the inscription on the back: ‘To S, with love, L’ said one and the other read, ‘To B, with love, L’. The concerned S and B took out their frustration on him, but with no lasting damage.

Now, he is a successful executive, with a wife and three kids. When they go swimming or on some adventure sport, they leave their watches with him. The cloth bag has been replaced by a leather pouch, and there is usually less aggression.