The boy reaches out. Two fingers touch the watch the man wears on his left wrist. He opens his mouth as if to speak. “The time?” Something moves in the affectless brown depths of the boy’s eyes. The watch is very old, purchased from a specialist dealer in a fortified arcade in Singapore. It is military ordnance. It speaks to the man of battles fought in another day. It reminds him that every battle will one day be as obscure, and that only the moment matters, matters absolutely.
