THE WAILING OF THE WATCH

It is not with a sense of arrogance that I say that I am an expert at solving other people's problems. No, I am merely stating facts. And there is nothing more humble than a man who serves the truth above all else, cleaving to the facts come what may.

However, there are sometimes issues that arise in my patients' lives, and occasionally in my own life, that are beyond even my capacities to resolve. It is then that I turn to my mentor, the man who has made me the counsellor I am today, the venerable Dr Flinkey.

Watch (excuse the pun) and learn, as the Doctor helps me negotiate one of the most perilous adventures of my life thus far.

Dear DocFlinkey,

I come to you now at our hour of greatest need. Only you can be of aid to us now. I shall be as brief as possible.

Some time ago, I discovered that my watch was running backwards.

Naturally, I put up with this for a few weeks. Eventually, though, it all became too much, and I took it in to be repaired. Unfortunately, as soon as I crossed the threshold of the jeweller's shop, the watch righted itself, and began running clockwise. And, naturally, as soon as I left the jeweller's, the watch returned to its errant, counter-clockwise ways. I repeated this experiment many times, always with the same result.

Clearly, my watch was showing signs of volition. It did not wish to be mended. So I respected its wishes for a further month. Finally, I decided that I should be a little more selfish and put my needs first. Something had to be done. And besides, I was now very curious about my watch. It had exhibited clear signs of intelligence. I wondered if I could find some way to communicate with it; perhaps I had found a friend.

But how to find out if communication were possible? Since you were unavailable at the time, I took the only practicable course, and travelled across the sea to the Land of the Watchdoctors. After many adventures (which I hope to recount at full length in my memoirs) I found myself face to face with the Watchdoctor Supreme, a wizened old woman with clocks and watches sewn into her faded, parched skin.

We sat, and she spoke of many time-pieces. Finally, she took my watch in her hands and examined it most carefully. Time passed. Summer turned to Autumn, Winter to Spring. The Earth turned many times on its axis. I became hungry, and also desirous of a visit to the lavatory. And still, the old woman examined my watch. And then, suddenly, she lifted her gaze towards me. Very gently and considerately (as she was a good old stick) she explained why it was that I must die.

I had had the watch since I was a boy. It was given to me by a very peculiar uncle, of whom my parents occasionally spoke in tones so hushed that I was not able to properly make them out. It transpired that the watch was indeed sentient, and had been taking care of me over the years. But recently, it had grown concerned. I was showing signs of physical and mental degeneration. My limbs were not quite as limber as they used to be, my mind not as agile, and my lungs had become black as pitch. The watch had observed all of this, and had decided to set things right. It would do so by running backwards until I was restored to a state of peak physical and mental acuity, and then it would resume normal operation.

Or so it seemed. The watchdoctor explained to me that this enterprise was a dangerous one. There was every possibility that the watch would become psychically engorged by the local reversal of time that it was effecting. And in such a state, it would lose all semblance of reason and self-control.

As she was explaining this to me, I was being tethered by her minions to the execution-post. Unfortunately, she did not have time to complete the explanation. She began to change. Her complexion became less glassy. Her hair thickened and regained its original hue. The watches and clocks began to unsew themselves from her skin, and fell haphazardly at her feet. Similar transformations were occurring among her minions. As my bonds fell away, I gathered up my watch from the ground where it had fallen. Its face was a blur of crazed motion.

And still it continued. The Watchdoctor Supreme and her helpers regressed further, until I was surrounded by babies, then foetuses, then embryos, and then, no doubt, by eggs and spermatazoa invisible to the naked eye. I was free, but afraid.

It is now six months since that terrible moment, and I have locked myself away in my house, and have ostracised myself from all of my usual company, for something truly horrific is happening. I now have the body of a six-year old boy, and yet, also the memories of a fully-grown man. There seems no way to halt the progress of this anti-ageing, and soon I will be no more. Once I realised that something was amiss, the watch sensed that I meant it harm. It has hidden itself away somewhere, and I cannot find it. You must help me in this.

For unless you can help me, Dr Flinkey, I am lost. And yet, it is worse than this. I think now that I finally understand what the old watchdoctor feared so greatly. The watch is now out of control. Once I am unborn, it will seek other things to wind back. Retirees will become babes. Skeletons in their graves will take the flesh again, and wend their way inexorably to unbirth. Back it will go. The Age of the Dinosaurs will return, and back and back, until there is only single-celled life, and then no life at all, and ultimately, the return of the singularity.

The Great Unbirthing is upon us! Hear the wailing of the watch, O esteemed Doctor, for only you can save all of humanity.

Your devoted patient,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey: Intruiging. Digital, or analogue? If analogue, you should soundproof your house, buy a microphone from a spyshop and you shall have your watch. Then you could either destroy it or get it righted.

Hognogger: Dear Doctor, I have anticipated you in this. It is an analogue watch. Unfortunately, when I went to the microphone shop, they wouldn't sell an expensive microphone to a six-year old boy.

Dr Flinkey: Hmmmm. Good point. Looks like you are f***ed old son!

Needless to say, I was beside myself with despair. If Dr Flinkey was unable to come to my aid, then surely there was no hope. My body dwindled. But as the next day broke, Flinkey returned to me with joyous news. He could hardly contain himself, so he restricted his ejaculation to a single sentence.

Dr Flinkey: I went to Cash Converters to retrieve my Stradivarius that I hocked for cash so that I could put a down-payment on a new Ashton acoustic guitar and lo and behold there was this guy behind the counter who looked 3 but talked like an 18 year old (I couldn't undertsand a word he said except for "like") and gestured towards this watch in a glass box thats was spinning around in circles and it had a price tag of 2 pounds and I said how retro is that and some other guy said heaps cos five seconds ago it was 3 pounds so I put one and one together and got hognogger and I picked up the watch and had this really strange feeling that something wasnt right coz I felt all of a sudden younger physically but my mind was just as immature as usual and I think this freaked the watch out because it expected me to have a mind older than a 3yo which I havent and so it sort of broke.

And this is how, in one seredipitous moment, Dr Flinkey saved us all from the Great Unbirthing.

THE STORY OF SALLY AND ENOCH

I'd like to share with you something quite special. I have often found it useful to recount this inspiring tale when I am confronted with a difficult patient who will not yield.

In the consultation room, sometimes I feel that I am making genuine progress with a patient. At the end of a fruitful session, the patient begins to grasp the germ of some important realisation which, if nurtured, would turn round a sorry life. There is a real feeling of excitement when you see a poor soul on the verge of a major therapeutic breakthrough. More often than not, however, the lacuna between consultations results only in the reinforcement of the patient's aberrant patterns of belief.

In these situations, I sometimes need a circuit-breaker; a device that, like the blunderbuss of yore, can be deployed at close range to crash through all psychological resistance to change. In such times, I turn, more often than not, to the Story of Sally and Enoch.

I present it to you in three parts. Perhaps it will work its magic on you, also, my dear reader.

ENOCH
I once knew a dining table called Enoch. Enoch was stationed in a fine restaurant. Every day, a variety of important people would dine from him, sharing stories about their exploits and travels.

Rooted to his spot, Enoch felt that life was passing him by.

SALLY
Sally was a table place-mat.

Though she was once young, shiny and pert, recently she had noticed that she was becoming a little ragged around the edges; perhaps she had already seen her best days. There now seemed to be little chance that she would find a sturdy and receptive table to settle down with.

For a year, she had been working in the restaurant, and, for a greater part of that time, she had been besotted with Enoch. She always loved spending time with him, and feeling his hard, smooth and strong surface beneath her.

Alas, it seemed that nothing was destined to come of their many abortive liasons. For it was impossible to predict when she would next be placed upon him.

JEAN
Jean the sponge was a terrible gossip.

She flitted from table to table, wiping here and there, picking up little trails of information which she duly disseminated to the taps, the basin, and the scouring pad, among other utilities and utensils.

Indeed, she was a most perceptive sponge. And malicious she was, too. She was quick to notice Sally's frustrated affection for Enoch. But instead of helping to bring a budding romance to fruition, she decided to block it wherever she could.

Jean circulated scurrilous rumours about Sally. This caused the tap to splash more hot water on Sally than was necessary. It caused the knife and fork to clatter more heavily across her than the occasion dictated. It caused the scouring pad to stray, and sully her delicate surface.

In time, Sally's figure was ravaged. Soon, Enoch's eye was drawn to other place-mats, and Sally no longer caught his attention, nor lingered in his mind between meals.

It was soon after this that poor, ruined Sally fell into the oil-vat and perished.