The Watch - Part 17

I thought to myself ‘Who’s that? I wasn’t expecting anyone this morning… Or was I?’ tried to remember what I said to my friend Tom yesterday when leaving school. After going to another Universe and spending time with a parallel-counterpart of the person who you have liked for years now, and get talking to the A.I. within the watch about how it works, you tend to forget everything that you had planned.

After not remembering who I would be meeting today, I went to open the door, and sure enough, Tom was standing behind it. As soon as he saw me wearing my pyjamas, he immediately pulled a massive grin.

‘It’s not often you’re still in your pyjamas this time of morning,’ he said checking his watch to make sure that it was still keeping the correct time.

‘I had a late night,’ I said truthfully. ‘And what with not having to go to college for a good month and a half, I didn’t see the point of setting my alarm.’ I let Tom in who immediately dashed for the kitchen. I closed the door and followed his steps. I found him with his head already in the fridge, fishing out whatever he could find first. He tore open a packet of chocolate bars, ripped open the wrapper and bit into one before acknowledging that I had entered the room.

‘I can say the same thing to you,’ I said leaning up against the counter.

Tom and I have known each other since were little, since day one of school to be precise, and we haven’t had a fallen out since. Sure we’ve had a couple of arguments, but nothing that we couldn’t sort out later on, and we’ve known to have a few friendly debates along the way, but whatever the hurdle, we’ve always managed to jump over it together and carry on, putting whatever it was behind us. We are now at that stage of the relationship, where we don’t have to ask to dive into each other’s fridge.

Tom is the person who I want to be, if you know what I mean, being confident, doing what he wants without worrying about anything. I’ve come a long way from the person who I used to be so many years ago, and that’s all down to Tom, So I am proud of myself for coming as far as I have. In a way, I’ve rubbed off on Tom as well: Calmed him down a bit, allowed him to see the world the way it is.

We’ve bounced backwards and forwards, always learning from one another. We have this friendship that some people, namely my mum and dad and his parents, say is strong and will continue getting stronger. We’ve stayed besides each other’s side always, helping one another out during the most difficult times. During some nights, we stayed around each other’s houses for the night where we would just talk the night away. We would talk about anything and everything; sometimes, the conversation changed to one particular subject: My liking of Amy.

Tom has even said that he’ll break the ice and go ask Amy to come over and talk to me, but I made it clear that I didn’t want him to do that much to his disappointment. That brings me to what happened in the Parallel Universe. I hung out with Amy and didn’t suffer from any nerves whatsoever, but that might be because I pointed out to myself that I am in a completely different Universe and no one knows me there so I can hang out with Amy without getting any funny looks from her friends. Maybe it has something to do with the watch? No, I won’t go into that now, I’m already rambling too much. I let you get back to what is happening now.

‘What brings you around here so early? I thought this was practically midnight for you?’

‘Dude, it’s the first day of summer,’ Tom said through a mouthful of chocolate, ‘I’m going to make every second count.’

‘So what do you have planned?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said stuffing the last part of his chocolate bar into his mouth, realising that it was a bit too much so continued his sentence when he had eventually swallowed it. ‘I thought you had an idea.’ Thanks for putting me on the spot.

I have so many ideas of what I would like to do, but I cannot do them as that would mean revealing my watch to him and that would be breaking one of the rules that I set myself.

‘Well,’ I said thinking about the surrounding area. I was going to say that we could take a walk down the market, but then realised that there wasn’t one. Not in this Universe anyway. ‘Let me get dressed, then we can have a think.' That was a close call.

‘Don’t be too long,’ he said reaching for another chocolate bar.

I ran upstairs and immediately picked out an outfit that I would like to wear from the wardrobe, only to realise that I can pick out something from the watch. Bringing up the menu, I scrolled through the clothes section.

‘There’s so many outfits here,’ I said to myself, ‘that I have not a clue what to wear.’ After a couple of minutes of just scrolling, I settled upon just wearing what I picked from the wardrobe instead.

‘I’ll choose something later,’ I said, heading downstairs. ‘Otherwise I’m going to be here all day and I know what I’m like at making decisions.’

‘Blimey, you took your time,’ Tom said. Judging by the packet on the counter, he was now on his fourth bar.

‘I couldn’t find my T-shirt,’ I said half truthfully.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Tom said, ‘what do you want to do?’

‘Um…’ I said thoughtfully.

‘How about we go bowling? Something light for the first day, then we can do something a bit more adventurous as the days go on.’

‘Yeah, why not,’ I said knowing that he only thought of that idea because he wants to show off his skills. His record his five strikes in a row. I have never gotten a single strike, which is really rather strange. What are the odds of not getting a single strike during many years of bowling, essentially practicing each game? Virtual bowling on the other hand is something I am good at for I have scored no end of strikes. But scoring a virtual strike just isn’t the same to scoring one in real life.

‘Then bowling it is, then,’ Tom said heading towards the front door, making sure he doesn’t forget the rest of the bars. ‘Your mum and dad gone away again,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said opening the front door and letting Tom step out first, ‘They haven’t specified how long they’ll be going for, which is a first,’ I said.

‘It is,’ Tom agreed as we made our way down the road.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)