THE BEWITCHED CLOCK

Do you wish to move back time and to live again yesterday... today? Here the history of my life. I learned too late what a foolish I had been... to want to master time!

Till these last years, I lived in England as an employee like such others. By the fortune and specially thanks to the death of an old aunt who left me an heritage I was enabled to be freed from a dull work without interest. Thanks to this unhoped money, I realised the dream of my life... a cruising towards the Eastern countries. During weeks I visited India, Ceylon, Korea and finally arrived in Shangaï. I was exploring this city when I was attracted by a strange clock in the window of a shop of antiquities...

I was very astonished to obtain the clock at a cheap price... The salesman explained me that it did not run since a long time. He adviced me not to repair it because it was malefic. He told me even a strange history about a wizard who had thrown a fate against this clock and the strange legend which referred to it. The legend said that the clock had magic capacities and that by advancing it of 24 hours, time will advance one day and that by moving back, time will also move back. I thought at that time it was a delicious history that the salesman had invented for selling better. When I returned to London, I had the clock in my luggage and quite naturally I placed it on the chimney of the living room and then I forgot it.

Then one night, several weeks after my arrival, whereas I put myself at the bed, suddenly I was awaked by a specific and persistent tick-tock coming from the living room. Surprised, I noted that the clock ran and even indicated the right hour... I thought this strangeness was due to the tribulations of the object and that a mechanism was released. I went back to bed... but I cannot sleep and as a kid, I decided to amuse myself with the needles of the clock and... I moved them back... The next morning, I prepared my breakfast and collected the newspaper of the morning in front of my door. What a surprise when I read that it was not the 24 of September but the 23. In my first opinion, it was a stupid error of the deliveryman of newspapers, but it was not at all and when I listen the TV news, I known it was really the 23, there was no possible error. It was true! the clock was really magic! I revived the day of the 23! With the prescience of somebody watching a movie which he had already seen. I could predict all things that were going to occur in the course of the day. And when I entered to the bar and listened to the report of the daily horse-race naturally, I knew already the winner... This night, after the dinner, I was smoking my pipe in front of fire and I thought about the clock. Sure, with my faculty to advance or move back time, I could become extremely rich. Knowing future, I could gain a lot of money... And that was I have done! In a few months, I piled up plenty of money...

I decided to change life and installed me on a tiny Scottish island . There, whereas I benefitted fully from a gilded retirement, I have an absurd idea which unfortunately was going to ruin my life. I taken my miraculous clock to clean it on the terrace which overhung the sea and wheraeas I manipulate it, the clock fell from the balcony in the deep water of the split... I ran until the beach and during hours I plunged vainly for seeking my magic clock. Finally, I fell exhausted on the beach! At this point, I heard an horrible mocker voice which seemed to rise from the depths of the sea... "The clock stopped, fool you are, you destroyed it. Now, it is your turn to be the slave of time!!!" I decided to leave the island as soon as possible in order to avoid this terrible curse but an invisible force impeeded me to leave. Little by little, I lost completely notion of the days and the hours. Without understanding why each day was similar to the previous one, I repeat the same gestures one after one, hour after hour... Ham and egg for the breakfast... saussage and rice for dinner. It was my food reserve which provides me the first indication of the terrible truth... The fridge never was empty. I was frightened when I heard the sames news listened to the radio in continuation... they were the same news repeated day after day. At this point, I have the revelation of the fate which awaited me! I was trapped into time, condemned to live the same day eternally... I was prisoner of time.

I stay on my island during a time that seems me an eternity... I think I fell mad. Then, suddenly, my punishment ended -I don’t know why- and the sun rose again into my life.

As if I had met the devil , I left my island and the bewitched clock and never returned.... sure I met him!