Eleven eleven

It was some time.

He sent her a watch, a cheap watch. Cartoon characters smiling from fragile wrist straps. Fading digits, gradually losing minutes that neither would ever be able to find.

It could have been another trivial item, another addition to frivolous memorials.

It could have been...

He owned the exact same watch, beyond repair. It flashed the same number. Eleven.

It lacked hands that could have caught these things that were falling.

It was some time after.

To him, it could have been decades, prolonged, unconscious, aching.

He attempted to destroy the watch, burn it to dust, drown it in deepest oceans, cut out its innards, but it remained embedded in his flesh.

Because time could not be accelerated nor destroyed, as much as he wished for either.

It was eleven.