StopWatch

Chapter 3

Later that day Brian went back to his apartment and decided to tinker with some old watches he found a while back.  He had a nice magnifying glass, and some worn out precise tools to work with.  He liked to take apart the watches and see how they worked.  The only problem was it was hard to put them back together.  But, after many years of tinkering he could take apart a watch fix the problem in it and put it all back together in just under an hour.

While he was tinkering away, he kept thinking of all the things he could do with the pocket watch.  There was so many things he could do, it made his stomach tickle just thinking about it.  Brian felt great to think he could change his life like this, if only he could figure out that stupid watch.  He took it out again and pressed the button again while holding his breath.  Still nothing.  He just about threw it against the wall.  Instead he took a deep breath and studied the watch again. 

Something caught his eye while scanning the gold band around the pocketwatch.  It was the tiny writing he saw the first day he had the watch.  He forgot all about it.  With a leap of hope he put the pocketwatch under his big magnifying glass to study the writing. 

“Whoaa,” said Brian as he read the words.  It read:

Once a day you may repeat the past, but only for an hour so make it last.

“So that’s why it’s not working right now.” Brian said to himself in realization.  He mentally went over when he used the watch.  Technically he did use it today, just really really early in the morning to get rid of the body again.  After figuring this out, Brian decided to go to the café to get out of the house awhile and to contemplate on this watch.  Also he had a date to attend.

At the café, Brian flipped through the newspaper to see if there was anything on Richard Gearson.  He looked through the obituary to find anything about him being dead.  Then he checked the main front headlines to see if they discovered the body.  Luckily the coast was clear. 

Brian changed first before he came to the little restaurant.  He wore a plain white t-shirt, combed his hair to the side, and wore clean slacks with a black belt.  He tucked his shirt into his slacks and he also wore a nice brown paddy cap over his neat hair.  He wanted to look good for the waitress that he liked.  So, after a few minutes of looking through the paper and finding everything good,  he tilted his head up a bit to peer over the top of the paper to see if he could find the pretty waiteress.  She was not the most beautiful girl by far, but she met Brian’s standards, which were set pretty low considering he had only a few girlfriends in his time. 

“You again huh,” said a girl from behind him.

He turned around and said, “Oh hey, Eileen, I didn’t know you were working today.” Brian knew he was lying through his teeth, considering he remembered her work schedule.

“So I’m guessing you’re wanting the usually, right?” she asked him.

“You know me too well, Eileen,” he said as he smiled.  “How about we go on a date together and you could get to know me better,” then he winked.

Eileen already had a boyfriend, only she never told Brian that. She loved the attention she was receiving though so she never told him.  Also she did like Brian, but she found it entertaining how he hard he would try to go on a date with her. 

“In your dreams,” she said and then walked away.  That was why Brian thought he failed at flirting, because he could never get Eileen to go on a date with him.  Brian’s heart sank a little at her response.  So much for his date.  Then all of sudden she turned her head to face him while she walked away and gave him a wink.  Brian immediately got butterflies. 

“I hate when she plays with me like that,” Brian whispered to himself.  Then he looked back at his newspaper to scan what other news there was.  His eyes scanned over the Wall Street Journal and read an article about a man who made $1,000 in just one day.  Brian was amazed at this and read on.  He read on and the article also mentioned other victories this guy had in Wall Street.  This guy was really lucky or really talented thought Brian.    But then he scanned to the bottom of the page and it read who the article was written about.  Brian’s heart leaped when he read the name Richard Gearson.