Pocket Watch: Part IV

Dear Blog,

Foreword:
Here is the moment you have been waiting for. I present to you the final and most awaited piece of the Pocket Watch story. I deeply hope you enjoy it. Read on, read on.

As the elder turned the knob, memories began to fly past. All his life! All his diligent and effortful work! Everything which he had labored throughout all these years; a lifetime of rigorous toil.
He could see it all, crowded around him as if he stood in the center of a compact chamber, fashioned from memories and images of his past, plastered on the walls. Every picture he could recall. Every moment. Many which he once believed to be the most significant, when he was only just living them as his present, and not simply errors of his past.

He saw himself as an infant, in a weedless meadow of radiant wildflowers and poppies. He could barely stand on his feet, yet he clumsily followed his siblings which he had once so greatly looked up to and idolized. If he ever tripped, which he did frequently, he would heave his chubby body over to get up and start anew, never loosing hope. He remembered how he had once observed life, when he was innocent and naive. Everything was simply a joke which you could chuckle at. Oh how he wished life was as simple as that!

In a different memory, he was watching his much loved aunt set a piano to life with her slender fingers. She sat neatly on a stool, leaned over the powerful and harmonic instrument. The elder watched patiently as her hands danced over the smooth, ivory keys. The beautiful yet haunting tune would draw any audience closer, wanting to hear more. The sorrow from the piece seeped into his body and gradually spread in his veins. Melodic and hypnotizing music flooded the room, engaging him so he would never want the music to stop. He felt afraid of advancing towards the piano, as if he was in a dream and one wrong step would waver the music, waking him up and abandoning the vision forever. He simply watched the scene in awe, unable to do more.

The memories spun around him, and he watched himself be kissed goodnight by his mother, learn to ride a bicycle and pick a bouquet of fresh lavender. All these moments which he had lived, accompanied by his treasured pocket watch tucked in his coat pocket or hid safely in his cupboard. Then, his eldest memory came to his mind. A newborn baby lying in a ruffled crib, not more than a day old. The baby's eyes glittering in the moonlight. And then it giggled. Such sound was music to his ears; to anyone's ears! It represented hope, a new life and the beginning of what once would be the end, when you would look back to the start and recall it fondly. As the elder remembered, he cackled with his croaked and hoarse voice. Only to him, the sound ringing in his ears was the same as the giggling baby's. They belonged to so distinct- yet so identical characters. The two laughs became one, as he continued to cackle. He realized that he was no longer the foolish young man- but at the same time he still was not the same mischievous child. He was someone different, a mixture of his past self with the part of himself which he had gained with experience and learning form mistakes. Feeling he had everything he would have ever needed, the elder closed the pocket watch and clutched it tightly to his chest, the laughter still sounding and the memories still filling his heart. Then, feeling satisfied with life, the man took a sigh and closed his eyes for one last time.