(essay)

I knew Bit would never sell his shop. I knew Bit would never betray his shop. “Place of life” gave the necessary things not only to customers, but also to the owner. It was life in the first place for the Bit himself. He would consider himself unworthy to wear the name and the notebook of his father, who bequeathed to keep shop until his last breath.

Bit was no longer young and was rarely seen in the company of women. He worked so hard on the development of the shop that he missed the moment when it was the easiest time to start a family. If Bit spoke to any miss for more than 8 minutes, he was immediately prophesied the most beautiful and smart kids in the whole area. Then Bit smiled embarrassedly and replied, “I haven’t met such a name that would ideally emphasize the surname Barkles yet.”

When he was asked who would get the shop after his death, Bit clearly and without hesitation presented, “Of course, Tarry. Who else?”

But now Mr. Dickens was also aiming for the owner’s place. I looked at the watch he gave me for a long time that evening. I couldn’t understand what memory he was talking about and why I should treasure it so in the memory of my watch. Giving a watch is a bad omen. Especially, the watch from Bit’s shop. Yes, their abilities have their advantages. But there is one huge downside.

If you break the watch, your time will stop. Literally. If you break the watch, you can damage the memory and memories will disappear. And without memories, there is no person. Along with the memories, their owner also dies. So I didn’t dare to wear them. I just twisted it in my hand until there was a knock on the store door.

We closed a few hours ago, so hardly anyone wanted to go shopping at such a late hour. Since I had nowhere to live when my parents died, Bit took me in. Then I turned 14 and moved into a maid’s room on the top floor of the store. So it turns out that the shop was also my life.

When I approached the door, a small burgundy envelope appeared under it. I picked it up, unrolled it and saw on the back that it was for Abiton Barkles.

In the morning, Bit read the letter, which was sleeping peacefully all night in an envelope. He silently set fire to it, and when the flame of a nearby candle had completely dressed the paper with ashes, he calmly but tensely asked me:

“The watch that Mr. Dickens gave you. Did you put them on?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Don’t put on. I think you’ll have to give them back to Mr. Dickens.”

Re-gifting an unworn watch from “Place of life” was the worst omen that the Barkles’s merchandise had ever been held responsible for. Gifted, unworn Barkles’s watches became cursed. This meant that you were giving up not only the watch, but also your memories. In the memory of the watch, moments are captured not by the mechanism of a dry observer. Watches remember the attitude towards them. And if you donate an unworn watch, you doom yourself and its new owner to a curse.

The one, who gives, loses memory. And the one, who accepts the gift, loses his mind. Because the watch, angry at the past owner, takes revenge on the next one, penetrating into the memory of the person who took it, and constantly scrolling through the most painful, most cruel, most terrible memories in his head.

So I got even more questions. Why did Mr. Dickens give me this watch? Why should I give them back to him? What was in the letter?

I had to find out the answers to all these questions some time in advance. But I already knew that the reason for everything was Mr. Dickens.