The Who, The What and the How Now?

[Fistandantalus]

If I could be any character from any book, I'd want to be Kirby Winter, from John D. MacDonald's book The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything.  Forget the craptasic flick they made out of it back in 1980, the book was a googleplex times better.

Kirby Winter, unassuming, shy 20-something guy, is bequeathed only a simple gold pocket watch from his uncle's vast estate.  He is understandably disappointed, as he was his uncle's only relative and can't understand why his uncle would leave everything but the watch to various charitable institutions.  When fiddling idly with the watch, he notices that it has four hands: hours, minutes, seconds and another one that does not move.  He continues to fiddle with the watch in order to see if that fourth hand can be moved with various pushes, pulls and turns of the watch's stem.  BOING!  All of a sudden, the world around him stops!  Kirby can move about relatively freely, although he feels a bit heavy about the limbs.  He notices that the fourth hand of the watch is now moving, and when it reaches 12, the world snaps back to life. 

It seems that Kirby's uncle, who had been an unsuccessful inventor for most of his life, actually did invent one useful thing--a watch that appears to stop time.  As Kirby experiments with the watch, he dicovers that the watch only works for an hour at a time before needing to be re-set, and that the watch doesn't actually stop time, it just slows it down a whole lot.  Many hijinks ensure as Kirby learns more about his uncle, the watch and gets chased by n'er-do-wells who would like to get their hands on such a valuable commodity.

Ironically enough, I found my copy of this book in the lounge area of the Stanford University physics lab while I was waiting for my father to split an atom or something, before taking us out for ice cream.  I've wiled away countless hours daydreaming about the ways I'd use that watch.

[clairandamjones]

Jun. 6, 2009 at 12:46 PM

If you get that hands on that watch, you are totally gonna share. 

[theyareallmine]

Jun. 6, 2009 at 12:52 PM

Ok...now I must find this book and read it...that sounds like a great read!