Preamble To The Instructions On How To Wind a Watch        


Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting 
you with a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. 
They aren't simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we 
hope it will last you, it's a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren't just giving you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist 
and walk along with you. They are giving you - they don't know it, it's 
terrible that they don't know it - they are gifting you with a new fragile 
and precarious piece of yourself, something that's yours but not a part of 
your body, that you have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of something hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the 
job of having to wind it every day, an obligation to wind it, so that it goes 
on being a watch, they gift you with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows to check the exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone service. They give you the gift of fear, someone will 
steal it from you, it'll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the 
gift of your trademark and the assurance that it's a trademark better than others, they gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches. They aren't giving you a watch, you are the gift, they are 
giving you yourself for the watch's birthday. 




julio cortázar