This blog post is going to be shorter than my usual works and for good reason. Like quite a handful of my posts now, watches are only related tangentially.
It was the afternoon of Friday, 3 October. I had just finished writing my numerical analysis practical and my friends and I were going to treat ourselves to a fun evening at my place. It’s remarkable how little it often takes to amuse a group of university-going gentlemen. We bought ourselves some chicken strips and chips along with an energy drink or two. That’s all we needed. A few hours prior a collector friend of mine contacted me and let me know he was willing to give me a great trade deal: a working Seiko 6139-8030 for my non-runner Seiko 6139-7080. He actually bought his 6139-8030 from me for a good price (I sold it on behalf of my watchmaker) a month or two earlier. It felt quite nice knowing that the watch was “coming home” in that I really fancied it but couldn’t get it running. It was serviced and all was working as it should. (It did develop some reset to zero issues and day malalignment later, but I rectified those – they’re known issues with the movement.)
Due to other commitments, the deal had to be done before 17:00, which required a bit of rushing and blood pressure spikes through Pretoria traffic. We exchanged the watches and went on our merry ways. While driving to his place, I saw that I had received a message from my father. I am very pedantic (and for good reason) about smartphone usage while driving. In my eyes, no one should be needing me so urgently that they cannot wait five minutes for me to get to a stoplight or pull over somewhere appropriate. I listened to his message when I got home and I went white. My cousin was involved in a terrible car accident earlier that afternoon and had unfortunately passed away. More details came as the night went on. I don’t think there exists an adjective in my vocabulary to describe the emotion that came over me. There was grief, but it was second hand in the sense that I felt almost selfish mourning the loss of a cousin when my aunt and uncle were mourning the loss of their only son who hadn’t even turned twenty-one.
The next day I saw my watch buddy’s WhatsApp status. He had lost his grandfather that night. I sent him my condolences, as even though we know each other through watches and do business with watches, we are both human and it hurts to lose someone. That’s how fragile life is: we exchange watches, talk crap, shake hands, and go on with our lives, but before any of us open our eyes the next day, we both lose someone in our family.
There’s not much more to be said here. All I can encourage you, dear reader, is to be safe on the roads. Road accidents and fatalities are mere statistics until they strike close to home. My thoughts and prayers are going out to all the families involved in this tragedy, as this accident claimed multiple lives.
The Escapement Room 