[ WP ] You wear a watch that does not work .

I got the watch on a Monday. I visited grandma in hospital. She was in the last stages of losing the war against cancer and I visited her every day. Even though I was only 12, I understood that I had to spend as much time with her as she could muster. That she would probably not make it past the month. On that day, when she saw me, grandma gave me the watch, told me to wear it to remember her by it. I kept my composure barely in the hospital room, but as soon as I was out of earshot, I cried like a baby. Only in that moment, I realized fully what mortality means. I kinda still tried to shut it out of my mind until that very moment she gave me the watch ( well, except for some shameful moments where I had intrusive thoughts which wanted her to die due to all the pain she was in ). I wore the watch daily, just like my grandmother had. It kept good time throughout my school years, even though the old-fashioned style with fraktur-like numerals was oldfashioned at best and ideologically suspect at worst. More than once I had to tell people that I was no Nazi, just someone still using a wristwwatch from her grandmother. Especially during my punk phase, the watch looked odd, but even though I disrespected almost everyone in my family, I still respected my late grandmothher and kept her watch on my wrist. Its ticking reminding me that my own time was ticking down. That one time, it would be me who would be lying in that hospital bed, or one just like it. Eventually, I did a 180 in regards to school and managed to graduate. 
 
 College was a blur of nights spent studying, or partying, or having depraved sex with strangers. The watch was ticking, of course. So get most out of life. I graduated with a BA in biology and almost zero job opportunities. As such, I decided to return and strive for a Masters and after the job situation was only slightly beter, I decided to go all in and get my doctorate. It was these last years where I matured, stopped partying and realizing that savoring the time that was given can mean very different things than just excess. When it was time to find employment, I ended up in a very remote area: To be exact: in the national university of Issyk-Kulistan. I taught and worked on... wait, if I tell what I did work on your eyes will glaze over, basically, it is related to anti-aging. Somewhen during the research, the watch died. To me, this was a sign, that maybe we were on to something. Despite working in the third world. Despite being chronically underfunded. Whether we are? Well, human trials are underway, so we might know soon.
